Instantaneous flow area calculation for modeling an axial piston pump: A point cloud-based technique

Accurate calculation of instantaneous flow area is of great significance for modeling an axial piston pump. A point cloud based technique is developed to calculate the instantaneous flow area, and used to perform a parametric analysis of key parameters on the pump fluid dynamics. First, a model is developed to analyze the fluid dynamics of the axial piston pump. Second, three techniques used to obtain the instantaneous flow area are described, with focus on the detailed description of the point cloud technique. The instantaneous flow areas are compared, and the accuracy of the pump model using the obtained instantaneous flow areas are verified by comparing the output pressure. Last, a comprehensive parametric study is conducted concerning the effects of the fillet radius and diversion position of the triangular groove on the pressure in the piston chamber and flow rate at the output port based on the point cloud technique. The results shown that the computation time of the point cloud technique is only 1% of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique, with a total computational error of less than 2.5%, and the triangular groove inside the pitch circle with a small fillet radius is beneficial for reductions of pressure and flow rate ripples.