On March 30, 2020, Nicodemos Monteiro de Farias presented his dissertation entitled Reuse of compressed air in discrete pneumatic actuation systems using intermediary reservoir, in Florianópolis, SC. The author performed an analysis of the fundamental aspects for a model of energy reuse in pneumatic systems. The main objective of the dissertation was to propose and evaluate a circuit architecture that allows the reuse of compressed air in pneumatic actuation systems. Starting from some simplifying hypotheses applied in the continuity equation and in the gas state equation for the pneumatic energy recovery system, analytical equations were derived for the calculations of the equilibrium pressures and the equilibrium time between the actuator chamber and reservoir. Then, the values were compared with the dynamic model simulation, obtaining a positive response regarding the adequacy of the analytical model. With this set of equations, a procedure was proposed to estimate the energy reuse system parameters. To evaluate this methodology, computer simulation results of the pneumatic energy reuse were shown in a case study for a packaging lifting system with two actuation systems. As a main result of the new circuit architecture implementation and the sizing procedure in the case study, the movement of one actuator is possible by using the energy in the form of compressed air recovered from the chamber of another actuator (which would normally be released to the environment). Therefore, energy savings occur and, consequently, increased efficiency, with compressed air not being consumed from the supply source in one of the cylinder movements.
