Radial piston pump assemblies and use thereof in hydraulic circuits

An assembly for increasing the efficiency of heavy machinery having hydraulic actuators performing work with fluid supplied from radial hydraulic pumps, the assembly comprising:

• a plurality of radial hydraulic pumps aligned end-to-end along a common driveshaft axis, including a plurality of piston/cylinder units extending in a radial direction about the driveshaft axis, wherein two or more piston/cylinder units in the plurality of piston/cylinder units are associated with one another to form multiple piston/cylinder groups;
• a plurality of control valves, each control valve in the plurality of control valves receiving and combining individual output flows from each of the two or more associated piston/cylinder units into a respective common output flow for each respective piston/cylinder group;
• and
• a plurality of flow control devices, each flow control device in the plurality of flow control devices varying the common output flow from each respective piston/cylinder group by throttling inlet flow to the two or more associated piston/cylinder units in each respective piston/cylinder group;
• wherein each respective common output flow is directed from each respective piston/cylinder group to a hydraulic actuator on the heavy machinery so as to control a direction of movement of the hydraulic actuator.