Hybrid garbage trucks are spreading in many cities across the U.S. The story goes like this: four hydraulic hybrid recycling vehicles started working the streets of Ann Arbor, MI in late July.
In early September, Los Alamos County, NM took delivery of its first hybrid refuse truck and now, three areas of southern Florida have joined the hybrid action. Miami-Dade County and the cities of Miami and Hialeah have each acquired an Autocar E3 refuse truck equipped with Parker Hannifin’s RunWise hydraulic hybrid technology.
The Autocar E3 uses stored hydraulic energy to power the truck as it moves from house to house for waste collection duty. The company claims that the hybrid system allows for a fuel savings of nearly 50 percent versus its diesel-only counterpart. Could say amazing! In addition, CO2 emissions are decreased by 38 tons per year. Greening up the act of collecting garbage is one benefit of the hydraulic hybrid refuse truck, but we’d bet that most municipalities choose hybrids to save money on fuel, which can amount to more than $18,000 over the vehicle’s 10-year useful life.
This week, the city of Ann Arbor, MI began deploying four of the first 25 trucks equipped with an Eaton Corporation hydraulic launch assist system. Ann Arbor’s mayor John Hieftje and Clean Energy Coalition executive director Sean Reed presented one of the new recycling trucks at the city’s Wheeler service center.
The hydraulic launch assist (HLA) system operates on a principal similar to other hydraulic hybrid systems we’ve seen. A pair of accumulators store energy captured during braking and release it during acceleration. The HLA is a parallel hybrid with a hydraulic pump motor connected to the drive-shaft through an electronically controlled transfer case clutch.
The system was actually originally developed at the EPA national laboratory in Ann Arbor. Engineers employed there are encouraged to come up with new ideas and patent them. The technology is then shared with privately owned companies for commercialization. Eaton is one of several companies developing hydraulic hybrid technology variants, including series hybrids. The Eaton HLA was first seen on the 2002 Ford F350 Tonka concept and Ford has been evaluating it for use in big pickups and vans, although no production variants have been announced yet.
HLA cuts fuel consumption of the trucks by about 15-20 percent in this type of application that includes frequent starts and stops. The four trucks are expected to save $73,000 in fuel costs over their 10 year useful life, along with $26,500 in reduced maintenance costs. These trucks make an average of about 1,000 stops a day and conventional versions require new brakes every three months or so. The HLA-equipped versions recapture about 75 percent of the kinetic energy of braking and only require brake maintenance once a year. The payback time for the extra initial cost is estimated at two to three years. Future versions could reduce operating and acquisition costs further through the use downsized engines and transmissions.
Amaze! Thank you! I constantly needed to write in my internet site anything like that. Can I take aspect of the send to my weblog?
Hi.All the articles are very interesting. Good luck.
Are kettlebell getups supposed to be slow or fast?
This article I read says slow, but I’ve seen people treating them like a race