Study on gaseous cavitation suppression of aviation pump by optimizing the structure of valve plate

With the continuous upgrading of aerospace equipment, the power density requirements for aviation pumps are also increasing. For increasing the power density, raising the rotational speed of aviation pump is a valid method. But under the condition of high rotational speed, fluids switches between high- and low-pressure may cause gaseous cavitation, vibrations, and noise. Many research proposed enhancing the inlet pressure to decrease the gaseous cavitation, but it needs additional facility and will decrease the power density of the aviation pump. Through changing the end orientation and optimizing the area, this paper put forward a new design of unloading hole for aviation pumps to reduce gaseous cavitation. Through establishing a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model, the effects of different structure of unloading holes on gaseous cavitation was inspected. Simulation results exposed that an up-connected unloading hole with radius of 0.8mm can reduce the gas volume fraction by 12% compared to structure without unloading holes under the same work conditions, and then the cavitation phenomenon can be suppressed. Therefore, through the optimized unloading hole, cavitation in aviation pump can be availably suppressed, which has important meaning for reducing the oscillation and noise in aviation hydraulic pump and system.