Influence of Piston Number on Churning Losses in Axial Piston Pumps

Raising the rotational speed of an axial piston pump is useful for improving its power density;however,the churning losses of the piston increase significantly with increasing speed,and this reduces the performance and efficiency of the axial piston pump.Currently,there has been some research on the churning losses of pistons;however,it has rarely been analyzed from the perspective of the piston number.To improve the performance and efficiency of the axial piston pump,a computational fluid dynamics(CFD)simulation model of the churning loss was established,and the effect of piston number on the churning loss was studied in detail.The simulation analysis results revealed that the churning losses initially increased as the number of pistons increased;however,when the number of pistons increased from six to nine,the torque of the churning losses decreased because of the hydrodynamic shadowing effect.In addition,in the analysis of cavitation results,it was determined that the cavitation area of the axial piston pump was mainly concentrated around the piston,and the cavitation became increasingly severe as the speed increased.By comparing the simulation results with and without the cavitation model,it was observed that the cavitation phenomenon is beneficial for the reduction of churning losses.In this study,a piston churning loss test rig that can eliminate other friction losses was established to verify the accuracy of the simulation results.A comparative analysis indicated that the simulation results were consistent with the actual situation.In addition,this study also conducted a simulation study on seven and nine piston pumps with the same displacement.The simulation results revealed that churning losses of the seven pistons were generally greater than those of the nine pistons under the same displacement.In addition,regarding the same piston number and displacement,reducing the pitch circle radius of piston bores is effective in reducing the churning loss.This research analyzes the effect of piston number on the churning loss,which has certain guiding significance for the structural design and model selection of axial piston pumps.

Deciphering the Mechanism Involved in the Switch On/Off of Molecular Pistons

Manufacturing machines converting energy to mechanical work at the molecular level is a vital pathway to ex- plore the microscopic world. A kind of operable molecular engines, composed offl-cyclodextrin （fl-CD）, aryl, al- kene and amide moiety was investigated using molecular dynamics simulations combined with free-energy calcula- tions. To understand how the integrated alkene double bond controls the work performed on the engines, two alkene isomers of the prototype were considered as two molecular engines. The free-energy profiles delineating the binding process of the amide （Z）- and （E）-isomers for each alkene isomer with 1-adamantanol indicate that for the alkene （E）-isomer, the apparent work performed on the amide bond is 1.6 kcal/mol, while the alkene （Z）-isomer is incapa- ble to perform work. Direct switch on/off of engines caused by the isomerization of the alkene bond was, therefore, witnessed, in line with experimental measurements. Decomposition of the free-energy profile into different compo- nents and structural analyses suggest that the isomerization of the alkene bond controls the position of the aryl unit relative to the cavity of the CD, resulting in the difference among the free-energy profiles and the stark contrast of the work performed on engines.