Dynamic Analysis of an Axial Piston Pump Swashplate Control

Abstract

A mathematical model of an axial piston pump is described which consists of a second-order differential equation of the swashplate motion and two first-order equations describing the flow continuity into the pump discharge chamber and into the swashplate control actuator. The equation of the swashplate angle contains torque components due to operating states. A method is presented by which the average torque can be computed for a pump of given geometry and at any given set of operating conditions. From the calculated average torque, the coefficients of the basic equation can be evaluated; agreement to within 10 per cent of experimental values for torque has been achieved. A state variables analysis of the dynamic behaviour has shown that there are two dominant poles at low frequency and that the damping ratio associated with these poles reduces by approximately one half when the downstream control volume increases by a factor of three, and varies from 0.84 to 0.48 as the pump rotational speed increases from 126 to 209 rad/s. It has been concluded that the assumption of linear variation with the basic parameters, which is a necessary prerequisite for the use of states variables analysis, is justified. The work outlined in this paper represents a step in the design process associated with the optimal control of an axial piston pump.