Murphy wrote:
I am learning about hydraulics presently and am fascinated by their
simplicity and potential. There are a number of issues that are still
unclear to me and I would be appreciative if someone could answer these
questions if I post them here from time to time...

The first being with regards to the hydraulic pump. It appears that 2200 PSI
is a standard line pressure used in hydraulics, do all pumps produce this
pressure with the variation between pumps being the flowrate or are all
pumps basically the same with the flow rate and pressure being determined by
the power source for the pump ?

There isn't a standard pump design; you get thousands of different pump
designs with different working pressures and displacements. Also note
that the pressure quoted is the maximum working pressure. If you
connected a pressure gauge to the system it wouldn't necessarily show
this pressure. The actual pressure depends on the load on the system.

For example does a pump produce either high pressure at a low flow rate or
low pressure at a high flow rate with the flow rate and pressure determined
by the power source ?

You do get variable displacement pumps (i.e., you can change the volume
of oil discharged per revolution of the shaft), but these are less
common than fixed displacement pumps.

Hope this helps,

Chris