Assessment of the Dynamics Flow Field of Port Plate Pair of an Axial Piston Pump

Abstract

This paper aims at studying the dynamic fluid evolution process of port plate pair of an axial piston pump. First of all, The Renormalization Group k-ε model (RNG k-ε model) is implemented to simulate the dynamic flow distribution and forecast the evolution of the internal vortex structure inside the valve plate chamber with different speeds of pistons and velocities of inlet fluid by using computational fluid dynamics software. Then, an equivalent amplification test model of a piston-valve plate is built up based on Reynolds similarity theory; the flow state of the piston-valve plate flow field is observed applied the particle image velocimetry (PIV) measuring technique. The resulting uniformity of numerical simulation and PIV measurement verifies that the RNG k-ε model can achieve high-precision prediction for the vortex structure inside the valve plate chamber. Through analysis of velocity contours and streamlines of the flow field, it can be found that vortices with different scales, strengths and positions will occur during the process of fluid distribution, and the scale and strength of the vortex inside the valve plate chamber will be reduced with the increase of the piston’s moving speed, so the energy loss is also reduced and the efficiency is improved.