Research on Cavitation Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Herringbone Gear Pump

Cavitation is a common issue in pumps,causing a decrease in pump head,a fall in volumetric efficiency,and an intensification of outlet flow pulsation.It is one of the main hazards that affect the regular operation of the pump.Research on pump cavitation mainly focuses on mixed flow pumps,jet pumps,external spur gear pumps,etc.However,there are few cavitation studies on external herringbone gear pumps.In addition,pumps with different working principles significantly differ in the flow and complexity of the internal flow field.Therefore,it is urgent to study the cavitation characteristics of external herringbone gear pumps.Compared with experimentalmethods,visual research and cavitation area identification are achieved through computation fluid dynamic(CFD),and changing the boundary conditions and shape of the gear rotor is easier.The simulation yields a head error of only 0.003%under different grid numbers,and the deviation between experimental and simulation results is less than 5%.The study revealed that cavitation causes flow pulsation at the outlet,and the cavitation serious area is mainly distributed in the meshing gap and meshing area.Cavitation can be inhibited by reducing the speed,increasing the inlet pressure,and changing the helix angle can be achieved.For example,when the inlet pressure is 5 bar,the maximumgas volume fraction in themeshing area is less than 50%.These results provide a reference for optimizing the design and finding the optimal design parameters to reduce or eliminate cavitation.

The Development of Gear Pump CAD/CAPP Based on Solid Works

Nowadays, many kinds of software, which have succes sf ully created the integration of CAD, CAPP and CAM, find their disadvantages in p ractical manufacturing. As a result, it is welcomed to develop small CAD/CAPP sy stems on a proper CAD platform, which aim at requirements of factories. Based on the one of the most popular three-dimensional design software SolidWorks, we successfully developed a set of gear pump CAD /CAPP software for Huaiyin Gene ral Factory of Mechanics. 1 The architecture and function of the software According to the need of the enterprises, the general structure of the software contain two subsystems, which are detailed as follows: · The gear pump CAD subsystem contains four main modules, including the optiona l design module of gear pump, module of part design, the module of entity modeli ng and the module of drawing which creates 2 D drawings of parts and assembly c orresponding 3 D modals. · The gear pump CAPP subsystem, which is a combination of creative mode and der ivate mode, also includes four modules, they are the module of access to feature s, the module of planning process route, the module of designing process sheets and the module of generating process documents. 2 The developing environment of the system Basing on Windows 98 and SolidWorks2001 platform, this system creates all functi ons by using Visual C++ 6.0 as developing tools. 3 The keys to the CAD/CAPP integration 3.1 The establishment of product information modal The information of parts is the basis of process planning. In this system, we us e feature modeling to describe the information of parts and assembly of gear pum p, and set up a fundamental basis for the whole system. The information module o f gear pump includes the information of both the assembly and the parts; the par t-describing module uses four-layer structure that is subassembly layer, part layer, feature layer and geometric layer. 3.2 The operation of the information on feature modeling After establishment of information mode of gear pump, the next key problem is ho w to transmit information of product to CAPP subsystem. In order to integrate pe rfectly, connecting CAD with CAPP directly can be a good method. In this system, all information of parts is store in the part drawing files, and the CAPP syste m can load these files to get information. The gear pumps, which are produced by Huaiyin General Factory of Mechanics, are usually belong to several similar typ es, and this means that most products possess large number of similar feature. T herefore, we can easily establish a specific feature for gear pump CAD/CAPP syst em. All parts are created by selecting these features and/or adding few special features. In the module of access to feature of CAPP subsystem, the main task is to find the features and the information will be easily got. 4 Conclusion This system successfully creates gear pump CAD/CAPP integration based on SolidWo rks. 3D CAD software provide more convenient platform for integration and will i nevitably become the mainstream of product design. By developing this system, we clearly realize the promising future of SolidWorks.

Case Study of Developing Gear Pump Design System with SolidEdge

Part and Draft modules of SolidEdge are used to construct 3D solid models and generate part drawings, while ActiveX Automation of VB is used to access engineering database files to realize dimension-driven modification of the designed parts. Moreover, VB plays the enabling role of integrating all work processes of gear pump design, resulting in a comprehensive CAD system.