Investigation of the Relationship between Vibration Signals Due to Oil Impurity and Cavitation Bubbles in Hydraulic Pumps

Abstract

Although hydraulic pumps are frequently used in daily life, improper use due to oil analysis or oil contamination is ignored. There is no instantaneous inspection; instead, the oil is changed periodically at certain times, whether it is contaminated or not. Hydraulic systems operate based on Pascal’s law, which states that the fluid will distribute the pressure equally to every point in a closed area. The fluid oil taken from an oil reservoir is moved into the pump by engine power. During this movement, as it passes through different pressure areas and different sections, undesirable events such as viscosity change and gas formation occur in the hydraulic oil. These formations collide with the outer walls and cause cavitation with respect to unwanted oil impurities. This cavitation causes unwanted vibration signals to occur in the normal working order of the system. As a result of cavitation, the particles that affect the lubricity and fluidity of the oil in the oil are mixed into the liquid and circulate freely. At the connection points, the blockage caused by the liquid in the pump cylinder block or the valve plate and the collisions of particles is effective. As a result, it creates vibrations of different frequencies. The frequency and amplitudes of these vibrations differ according to the degree of oil contamination. A method has been developed to find the degree of contamination of the oil circulating in the pump by looking at the amplitude and frequency of these vibrations measured from the motor body. There exist standards about the pollution of hydraulic fluid. With these standards, the maximum number of particles allowed for a given pollution level is defined. This topic is discussed in the conclusion to this study. This method has also been proven experimentally. Error and vibration analysis studies on pumps using a different approach are available in the literature. In these studies, pressure variation, total energy transmission, or artificial intelligence models were used to detect anomalies in the pump. In this study, the impurity rate of the oil was set at five different levels and the operating regime of the pump at each level was investigated experimentally. Rayleigh–Plesset and Zwart–Gerber–Belamri models, which are the most common cavitation models, were used to explain the bubble formation in the moving oil and the relationship of these bubbles with vibration. Frequency components were examined by the Discrete Fast Fourier Analysis method, where the operation of the pump was affected by the increase in oil impurity.