Numerical Modeling of a Helical External Gear Pump With Continuous-Contact Gear Profile: A Comparison Between a Lumped-Parameter and a 3D CFD Approach of Simulation

The concept of continuous-contact helical gear pumps (CCHGP) has been proposed and successfully commercialized in the recent past. Thanks to the continuous-contact rotor profile design and to the helical gear structure, this design eliminates the kinematic flow oscillation. This has important implications on the fluid borne noise generation, which is considered as one of the major sources of noise emissions and mechanical vibrations for positive displacement machines. Although the commercial success of the CCHGP concept, there is very little published studies about the underling physics at the basis of the functioning of this type of design. This is mostly due to the complexity of the fluid domain that characterize the functioning of CCHGP units. In this paper, a transient 3D CFD study is conducted for a reference CCHGP unit for high-pressure (up to 200 bar) fluid power applications. The results of the 3D CFD simulation are compared with those given by a lumped-parameter model developed at the Maha Fluid Power Research Center of Purdue University (USA), which was previously validated against experimental results. The results show how with a proper discretization of the fluid domain the CFD simulation approach can be used for the case of helical CCHGP units. Both models provide a good description of the main features of operation of the unit. The lumped parameter model is quicker, thus suitable for fast optimization studies. However, the CFD results not only can be used to support the main assumptions done on the lumped parameter model, they also permit to gain further insight on the operation of the CCHGP unit, particularly with respect to the flow features of the meshing process.