Gerotor pump with POM gears: Design, production technology, research

Strength analysis of the polyoxymethylene cycloidal gears of the gerotor pump

Visualisation research of the flow processes in the outlet chamber–outlet bridge–inlet chamber zone of the gear pumps

The Fluid Power Elements and Systems Made of Plastics

A gerotor pump, which is widely used in the automotive industry for engine oil lubrication, produces an instantaneous flow fluctuation and the estimation of this is fundamental in order to evaluate the pump quality for silent and smooth operation. The intricate aspects of the pumping process of a gerotor pump make computational fluid dynamics the appropriate tool for modelling and simulation to provide insights into its flow characteristics. Because the instantaneous flow is rather dependent on the teeth contact, a new boundary condition of a virtual wall was developed, which allows simulation of the teeth contact in the interteeth radial clearances. This new boundary condition is utilized in a three-dimensional model of the gerotor pump with mesh deformation and remeshing at every time step by means of a home-made ad-hoc code programmed by the present authors and named viscous wall cell. The code has been integrated into the computational fluid dynamics solver. The interteeth clearances are studied under the following different operating conditions (working pressures and rotational velocities): first, no contact points (no teeth contact is studied in order to prove that, even if the interteeth radial clearance is sufficiently small, the leakage cannot be negligible); second, all contact points (the ideal approach is considered with zero interteeth radial clearances used to model zero manufacturing tolerances); third, one contact point at different locations (the existence of manufacturing tolerances and the teeth contact approach make the pumpâ€™s operation and its pumping mechanism more realistic in the simulation). The numerical instantaneous flow is compared with the analytical instantaneous flow, with the instantaneous flow modelled by using the bond graph technique, and with the experimental determination of the flow ripple for a specific unit. The results obtained show the importance of simulating the teeth contact and prove to be an excellent estimation of the instantaneous flow behaviour to obtain the dynamic properties of a gerotor pump under more realistic conditions than its design.

Influence of the interteeth clearances on the flow ripple in a gerotor pump for engine lubrication

The mechanism of induction of stresses and deformations in plastic cycloidal gears used in gerotor pumps has been analysed using the finite element method and the ABAQUS program. It has been found that the gear system remains under the influence of the mechanical load resulting from the torque on the pump shaft and the hydraulic load resulting from the activity of pressure in the intertooth displacement chambers. It has also been discovered that the intertooth forces and stresses are formed only in the part of the gear that can be referred to as ‘active’. In the other part of the gear, forces and stresses do not occur, and the part can be referred to as ‘passive’. Another finding of the research is that gear deformations occur such that the teeth of the external gear are deformed and moved in the direction of the active part of the mesh, and the teeth of the internal gear in the direction of the passive part. Thus, radial and axial intertooth clearances are formed, which result in internal leakages in the...

K Biernacki

Papers

Analysis of Stress and Deformation in Plastic Gears Used in Gerotor Pumps