Design of a Hybrid Electric Power-Split Transmission for Braking Energy Recovery in a Drilling Rig

Abstract

Despite the promising potential of the hybrid electric power-split layout, its broader market penetration is prevented by the large number of feasible solutions and the constructive complexity, which overcomplicate the design process. Moreover, due to the lack of relevant literature references, the power-split transmissions design is even more difficult if concerning applications outside the automotive and agricultural sectors. In this paper, a general parametric model already available in the literature to design a single-mode power-split transmission with up to two planetary gear sets and six ordinary gear sets was applied to hybridize an oil drilling rig to recover energy braking during the gravity-driven lowering phases. This is the first power-split electric hybridization of a drilling rig. Two solutions differing in engine power size are presented. Thanks to the modularity of the model, the procedure enabled the optimization of the ICE, the electric machines, and the gear sets through decoupled design phases.

Overview of Energy Harvesting Technologies Used in Road Vehicles

“…In the literature, you can find many works that refer to the recovery of energy from the braking force. Most of the studies, however, refer to EV [194,196,199,200] or hybrid vehicles [201][202][203], and only a few refer to those powered by an ICE [147,204] and other machines [205]. The reason for this may be achieving significantly lower benefits compared to hybrid or EV.…”