The
Joseph Bramah Medal 2019 was awarded to Andrea Vacca, by the
Mechatronics, Informatics and Control Group, which is ‘Awarded for outstanding achievement tending to advance the science of mechanical engineering, particularly in the field of hydraulic engineering’.
Andrew Plummer, Past Chair of the Mechatronics, Informatics and Control Group made an online 'presentation' to Andrea Vacca of the 2019 Joseph Bramah Medal 'for contributions to fluid power research, particularly related to gear pumps, and for co-ordination of the global fluid power research community', at the Fluid Power and Motion Control Symposium held on 9-11th September 2020 at the University of Bath.
Andrea’s professional career is characterized by strong academic emphasis. Having grown up in the European academic environment he learnt from early on to combine fundamental and application-oriented research supported by industry. This led to the impressive accomplishments he achieved since his employment at Purdue University.
His most outstanding achievements includes:
• Analysis and simulation of gear type displacement units with new insights of functional details not known before
• Development of the simulation program HYGESim
• Analysis of lubricating and sealing gaps in gear pumps and motors
• Invention of a variable gear machine
• Research of noise generation including structure, fluid and air borne noise
• Controls for energy efficient actuators with displacement adjustment
• Design solutions for electrified pumps working in four quadrants of operation for electrified hydraulic systems
His impressive achievements in the areas of fluid power mentioned above are backed by high value publications; more than 60 journal papers and more than 100 conference papers. Several of these publications received also prestigious awards, such as the 2015 Donald Julius Groen Prize of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), or the Best Paper award of the Global Fluid Power Society in 2017 at the 15th Scandinavian International Conference on Fluid Power. He also received the best paper award at the ASME Fluid Power and Motion Control conference in both years 2017 and 2018.
Dr Vacca thus became a well-known and respected expert in the area of fluid power. He is covering in his research an extraordinary wide field from valves to controls and displacement units to their utilization in machines. Many of these machines are in use for agricultural applications.
He is currently working on prototypes for agricultural tractors and implements that can improve the energy efficiency of the hydraulic drive system by about 40%. The equipment visible at his lab at Purdue, which include modern and very valuable agricultural machines, shows the high level of interest of his industry sponsors for his proposed concepts. In addition of covering high viscosity fluids and its behaviour he is also active in the field of low viscosity pressure media known as water hydraulics where he was awarded a project by the USDA (US Department of Agriculture). This is just one example how his research for agricultural applications also considers environmental impacts.
Next to the mentioned outstanding performance of Dr Vacca it needs to be pointed out that he is also very successful in network building and contributing to the worldwide fluid power and mobile hydraulics community comprising also agricultural machines. Therefore, he became Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Fluid Power following Monika Ivantysynova after her sudden death. He is Chair of the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Fluid Power Committee and co-Chair of the Fluid Power System and Technology Division of ASME (American Society of American Engineers). He acts as Secretary of the Scientific Board of the Global Fluid Power Society (GFPS) and is a member of the CCEFP management committee.
Dr Vacca served also the 2017 ASME/Bath conference on Fluid Power as General Chair. This conference was among the most important international events in fluid power during 2017.
After a decade in the United States, he was able to rapidly establish an internationally recognised research program. It must also be emphasized that Andrea played an outstanding role after the tragic passing of Monika Ivantysynova in late 2018. The under signer knows too well that the institution and all its international bands would have been disrupted without the extraordinary commitment of Andrea. He is certainly an Ambassador of Fluid Power and this award will motivate him to continue on this path.