A CFD Investigation of a 2D Balanced Vane Pump Focusing on Leakage Flows and Multiphase Flow Characteristics

Thomas Lobsinger, Timm Hieronymus and Gunther Brenner
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Thomas Lobsinger: Robert Bosch Automotive Steering GmbH, Richard-Bullinger-Straße 77, 73527 Schwaebisch Gmuend, Germany
Timm Hieronymus: Robert Bosch Automotive Steering GmbH, Richard-Bullinger-Straße 77, 73527 Schwaebisch Gmuend, Germany
Gunther Brenner: Institute of Applied Mechanics, Clausthal University of Technology, Adolph-Roemer-Straße 2A, 38678 Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 13, 1-24

Abstract: Vane pumps are often applied in automatic transmission systems of vehicles. Future applications require the oil pumps to be more efficient and to be able to handle multiphase flow pumping situations to a certain extend. To fulfill these requirements, efficient development tools are needed. Therefore, a less demanding computational 2D model of a fixed-type balanced vane pump was derived and numerically analyzed with the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS CFX. The meshing of the rotating parts was done with TwinMesh, using a moving mesh approach. At first, a mesh convergence study was performed. It was shown that the resolution of the radial clearances in particular had a significant influence on the predicted leakages and the volumetric efficiency. The leakage was further investigated concerning the dependence on rotational speed and delivery pressure. In the next step, multiphase flows were considered. In a first setup, vapor cavitation was analyzed and the influence of the alignment of the suction ports on its onset was derived. In a second setup, the influence of different inlet volume fractions of free air was evaluated. The employed multiphase modeling approach was presented and a sensitivity analysis on modeling parameters was performed. Overall, it was shown that free air in the suction ports changed the pumping characteristic of the vane pump significantly. Pressure and flow ripple increased, and the volumetric efficiency and the mean power demand decreased significantly with an increasing inlet volume fraction.

Keywords: rotary vane pump; CFD; 2D; multiphase flow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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