The National Fluid Power Association (NFPA) published its Technology Roadmap for the Fluid Power Industry in 2009 to provide NFPA member companies and their research partners with a consensus regarding the research and development needs of the industry. It has been used by the NFPA Education and Technology Foundation and Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power to guide their research efforts; by NFPA to guide its standards development work, and by NFPA members to inform decisions about research partnerships and product development.
NFPA is releasing an updated document revisiting the six areas of Research Challenge identified by the original Roadmap. A task force agreed to several revisions to the challenges and organized them into categories to reflect the primary strategy that should be pursued to address each one.
The Research Challenges are to:
- Increase the energy efficiency of fluid power components and systems,
- Improve and apply energy storage capabilities, and
- Reduce the size of fluid power components and systems.
The Market Education Challenges are to:
- Build “smart” components and systems,
- Improve the reliability of fluid power components and systems, and
- Reduce the environmental impact of fluid power components and systems.
Although the task force report suggests several market education and research and standardization initiatives, it prioritizes education and the application of existing technologies and procedures as providing the greatest potential benefit in these areas.
Click here to download the report.
Contact Eric Lanke at [email protected] or call (414) 778-3351 for more details.
