Study on the cavitating flow in an oil hydraulic pump

In the present study, the computational fluid dynamics(CFD) is employed using a three-dimensional realizable k-ε turbulent model with cavitation model to estimate the occurrence and the region of the cavitation cloud of the cavitating jet flow issuing from a notch (V-shaped groove) in an oil hydraulic pump. On the other hand, test pump model is designed to visualize the jet flow near a notch of a valve plate in an axial piston pump using a high-speed video camera from the perpendicular direction to the axis. The CFD results are found to be in good agreement with the visualization results. The main aim of the present study is to investigate the influence of the number of notches on the pressure distribution, void fraction and the volume of the cavitation region. The erosion for those cases is discussed by investigating the pressure distribution on the inside surface of the cylinder.