Impact of Typical Steady-state Conditions and Transient Conditions on Flow Ripple and Its Test Accuracy for Axial Piston Pump

The current research about the flow ripple of axial piston pump mainly focuses on the effect of the structure of parts on the flow ripple. Therein, the structure of parts are usually designed and optimized at rated working conditions. However, the pump usually has to work in large-scale and time-variant working conditions. Therefore, the flow ripple characteristics of pump and analysis for its test accuracy with respect to variant steady-state conditions and transient conditions in a wide range of operating parameters are focused in this paper. First, a simulation model has been constructed, which takes the kinematics of oil film within friction pairs into account for higher accuracy. Afterwards, a test bed which adopts Secondary Source Method is built to verify the model. The simulation and tests results show that the angular position of the piston, corresponding to the position where the peak flow ripple is produced, varies with the different pressure. The pulsating amplitude and pulsation rate of flow ripple increase with the rise of pressure and the variation rate of pressure. For the pump working at a constant speed, the flow pulsation rate decreases dramatically with the increasing speed when the speed is less than 27.78% of the maximum speed, subsequently presents a small decrease tendency with the speed further increasing. With the rise of the variation rate of speed, the pulsating amplitude and pulsation rate of flow ripple increase. As the swash plate angle augments, the pulsating amplitude of flow ripple increases, nevertheless the flow pulsation rate decreases. In contrast with the effect of the variation of pressure, the test accuracy of flow ripple is more sensitive to the variation of speed. It makes the test accuracy above 96.20% available for the pulsating amplitude of pressure deviating within a range of ~6% from the mean pressure. However, with a variation of speed deviating within a range of ±2% from the mean speed, the attainable test accuracy of flow ripple is above 93.07%. The model constructed in this research proposes a method to determine the flow ripple characteristics of pump and its attainable test accuracy under the large-scale and time-variant working conditions. Meanwhile, a discussion about the variation of flow ripple and its obtainable test accuracy with the conditions of the pump working in wide operating ranges is given as well.

A novel approach for predicting inlet pressure of aircraft hydraulic pumps under transient conditions

Cavitation caused by insufficient suction is a major factor that influences the life of aircraft pumps. Currently, pressurizing the tank can solve the cavitation problem under steady largeflow conditions. However, this method is not always effective under transient conditions(from zero flow to full flow in a very short time). Moreover, to apply and design other measures, such as a boost impeller, the suction dynamics during the transient period must be investigated. In this paper,a novel approach based on the pressure wave propagation theory is proposed for predicting the inlet pressure of an aircraft pump under transient conditions. First, a dynamic model of a typical aircraft pump is established in the form of differential equations. Then, the transient flow model of the inlet line is described using momentum and continuity equations, and the governing equations are discretized by the method of characteristics and the finite difference method. The simulated results are in good agreement with the results from verification tests. Further simulation analysis indicates that the wave velocity and transient time may influence the inlet and reservoir pressure as well as the size of the inlet line. Finally, solutions for upgrading the inlet pressure are discussed. These solutions provide guidelines for designing inlet installations.

External Characteristics and Internal Flow Features of a Centrifugal Pump during Rapid Startup

Centrifugal pumps always work under steady conditions,and many researches focus on the steady operation.But transient conditions,such as sudden startup and shutdown,are inevitable.The researches on the inner flow of centrifugal pumps under transient conditions have been done,and they show that the transient operation is different from the steady operation.In order to research the evolution of unsteady flow in a centrifugal pump under transient conditions,and to investigate the mechanism of transient effects by analyzing the unsteady flow in a centrifugal pump,the external characteristic experiment and the internal flow numerical calculation of the centrifugal pump with an open impeller during startup is presented.The relationships of the rotation speed,capacity and head between start-time are obtained by the external characteristics experiment.The numerical calculations under startup process are carried out by using the k-e model and N-S equation.The distribution of velocity and pressure in the inner channel of the tested pump was obtained by choosing fourteen start-time points and twelve geometrical points in the impeller channel during startup.The calculation results show that the velocity and the pressure increase linearly with the start-time before rotation＇s speed gets steady,then changes almost horizontally after rotation speed becomes steady,then fluctuates until being steady.The internal flow characteristics are in good agreement with the external characteristic experimental results and numerical calculation.The simulation methods and results make the basis for the diagnosis and optimization of under flow in the centrifugal pump during transient operation.