Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, (2018), 31(1): 169–177

Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics

& Beihang University
Chinese Journal of Aeronautics
cja@buaa.edu.cn
www.sciencedirect.com

Analysis of the cylinder block tilting inertia moment

and its effect on the performance of high-speed
electro-hydrostatic actuator pumps of aircraft
Junhui ZHANG *, Qun CHAO, Bing XU

State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

Received 14 September 2016; revised 13 October 2016; accepted 7 November 2016

Available online 14 February 2017

KEYWORDS Abstract Electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA) pumps are usually characterized as high speed and
Aircraft pump; small displacement. The tilting inertia moment on the cylinder block produced by the inertia forces
Cylinder block; of piston/slipper assemblies cannot be ignored when analyzing the cylinder block balance. A large
High speed; tilting inertia moment will make the cylinder block tilt away from the valve plate, resulting in severe
Inertia moment; wear and significantly increased leakage. This paper presents an analytical expression for the tilting
Leakage; inertia moment on the cylinder block by means of vector analysis. In addition, a high-speed test rig
Wear was built up, and experiments on an EHA pump prototype were carried out at high speeds of up to
10,000 r/min. The predicted nature of the cylinder block tilt at high speeds corresponds closely to
the witness marks on the dismantled EHA pump prototype. It is suggested that more attention
should be given to the tilting inertia moment acting on the cylinder block of an EHA pump since
both wear and leakage flow between the cylinder block and the valve plate are very much dependent
on this tilting moment.
Ó 2017 Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. This is
an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction

The future development of general aircraft systems is directed

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: benzjh@zju.edu.cn (J. ZHANG), chao_qun@zju.
edu.cn (Q. CHAO), bxu@zju.edu.cn (B. XU).
Peer review under responsibility of Editorial Committee of CJA.
Production and hosting by Elsevier
towards more electric aircraft (MEA), in which traditional
central hydraulic systems are replaced with local electrically
powered actuation systems.1 Successful application of the
power-by-wire (PBW) technology to MEA makes EHAs easily
realizable. Local electrically powered actuation systems have
some potential advantages, such as weight reduction, power
saving, and improved maintainability, over conventional cen-
tral hydraulic systems.2–5 As shown in Fig. 1, a typical EHA
system mainly consists of a variable-speed servo motor, a
fixed displacement and bi-directional axial piston pump, a

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2017.02.010
1000-9361 Ó 2017 Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
170
Fig. 1 Schematic of an electro-hydraulic actuation system.
symmetrical linear actuator, an accumulator, and some related
valves, etc. In an EHA system, the symmetrical linear actuator
of the primary flight control surface is motivated using hydrau-
lic fluid, the velocity and direction of which are controlled by
the fluid flow from a servo motor driven hydraulic pump called
EHA pump. The accumulator is mainly to maintain the pres-
sure in the system, to cool the hydraulic fluid, and to compen-
sate any fluid loss over the lifetime of the actuator.
Fig. 2 shows the general configuration of an axial piston
pump, a type of EHA pump. The cylinder block is held tightly
against the valve plate by means of a compressed cylinder
block spring, while the valve plate is held in a fixed position.
There are several piston/slipper assemblies nested within the
cylinder block at equal intervals about the centerline of the
cylinder block. The slippers remain in a reasonable proximity
with the swash plate utilizing a spherical cup and a hold-
down device called retainer. The shaft is coupled with the
cylinder block using a spline mechanism and is supported by
two bearings at both shaft ends. When the shaft is driven by
a servo motor, the cylinder block rotates about the axis of
the shaft and thus all the piston/slipper assemblies reciprocate
within the cylinder bores because of the hold-down mechanism
and the inclined swash plate. During rotation, thin oil films
form between the cylinder block and the valve plate, between
the pistons and the cylinder block, and between the slippers
and the swash plate. These thin oil films serve as combined
hydrostatic and hydrodynamic bearings respectively. How-
ever, a leakage flow occurs across the sliding interfaces due
to the existence of these thin oil films. Unreasonable gaps
between the sliding parts tend to increase the leakage flow as
well as the potential for undesirable wear.
Fig. 2 General configuration of an axial piston pump.
J. ZHANG et al.
An EHA pump usually operates at a high speed of more
than 10,000 r/min since a higher speed means a smaller dis-
placement for a given volumetric flow of the actuator. There-
fore, more compact EHA pumps can be realized by
increasing the pump speed, which is of importance for improv-
ing the power density of the EHA system. Messier-Bugatti and
Parker claimed that they have produced very high-speed EHA
pumps whose rotational speeds can even reach more than
15,000 r/min. For the aim of higher power density, the contin-
uing development of EHA systems makes a further demand
upon EHA pumps for greater rotational speeds. However,
high-speed operating conditions will bring several practical
problems imposed on EHA pumps.
The first problem regards pressure pulsation.6,7 The pres-
sure within the cylinder block of an axial piston pump easily
exhibits undershooting or overshooting when the pump is
operating at a high speed. It is found that the undershooting
or overshooting pressure increases almost linearly with
increased rotational speed.
The second problem associated with a high speed is the cav-
itation.8–11 An axial piston pump with a high speed is likely to
be in accompany with obvious cavitation. On one hand, the
pump speed should be limited below the critical speed that
exactly causes cavitation. On the other hand, a higher suction
tank pressure is needed for which a booster pump may be used.
The third problem of a high speed may be concerned with
power losses.12–17 Power losses arising from high speeds
mainly involve friction losses due to metal-to-metal contact,
and viscous friction and churning losses due to rotating ele-
ments interacting with the fluid filled in the pump case. Some
special surface treatments of metals such as duplex TiN coat-
ings14 and novel structures such as Power BoostTM18 have pro-
ven to be effective in reducing power losses through
experimental studies.
The last problem caused by a high speed is the tilt of rotat-
ing parts in an axial piston pump. In the past decades, some
theoretical and experimental research has been devoted to
the slipper tilt.19–25 It was found that the slipper tends to tilt
away from the swash plate when a pump reaches a high speed.
Although some academic attentions have been given to the
cylinder block tilt, most studies were occupied with the tradi-
tional cylinder block tilt resulting from the pressure difference
between the discharge and intake sides.26–30 In reality, another
type of cylinder block tilt due to the cylinder block tilting iner-
tia moment produced by the inertia forces of piston/slipper
assemblies cannot be ignored when a pump operates at a high
speed. Ivantysynova et al.29,31,32 included the inertia forces of
piston/slipper assemblies in elastohydrodynamic (EHD) and
Analysis of the cylinder block tilting inertia moment
thermoelastohydrodynamic (TEHD) models, but all these
models were not applied to high-speed conditions and no
detailed results about the influence of the cylinder block tilting
inertia moment on the pump performance were presented.
Manring10,33 pointed out the inherent phenomenon of cylinder
block tilt and derived the cylinder block tilting criteria; how-
ever, the expression for the cylinder block tilting inertia
moment was not given explicitly in his study.
The goal of this study was to investigate the cylinder block
tilt in a high-speed EHA pump from the point of view of
dynamics. In the present work, an expression for the cylinder
block tilting inertia moment was developed that included the
translational inertia and centrifugal forces of a piston/slipper
assembly. Moreover, high-speed tests on an EHA pump proto-
type were carried out to examine the effect of the cylinder
block tilting inertia moment on the EHA pump performance.
2. Mathematical model
In order to better understand the reason for producing the
cylinder block tilting inertia moment, the relevant forces acting
on a single piston/slipper assembly, as shown in Fig. 3, must be
accurately defined. Point c in Fig. 3 represents the centroid of
the piston/slipper assembly. It should be emphasized that just
the cylinder block tilting inertia moment will be discussed in
this paper, so the relevant forces resulting in the tilting inertia
moment only involve the translational inertia force Fa and the
centrifugal force Fr of the piston/slipper assembly.
In this case, the XYZ system is fixed in an inertial frame
and the xyz system attached to the cylinder block rotates rela-
tive to the XYZ system. Suppose that q and L are the position
vectors of the centroid of the piston/slipper assembly and the
center of the piston-slipper ball joint, respectively, relative to
the origin in the XYZ system. Then the absolute acceleration
of the centroid of the piston/slipper assembly can be expressed
in a vector form as34
an ¼ x_  qn þ x  ðx  qn Þ þ ð€
qn Þr þ 2x  ð€
q n Þr ð1Þ
where x is the absolute angular speed of the cylinder block
whose magnitude x is assumed to be constant, subscript n
represents the nth piston/slipper assembly, and subscript r
denotes that the scalar quantity or the vector quantity is
described relative to the xyz system.
Fig. 3 Forces acting on a single piston/slipper assembly.
171
Before evaluating each term of Eq. (1), we note that35
x ¼ xk ð2Þ
ðqn Þr ¼ R tan bð1  cos un Þk ð3Þ
qn ¼ R sin un i þ R cos un j þ ðzc þ ðqn Þr Þk ð4Þ
in which i, j, and k are the unit vectors in the X-direction,
Y-direction, and Z-direction, respectively, R is the pitch circle
radius of piston bores, b is the swash plate angle, zc is the
initial position of the centroid of the first piston/slipper
assembly, and un is the angular position of the nth piston.
If u1 = 0 when the bottom dead center (BDC) is chosen as
the position for the derivation of kinematic parameters, then
un ¼ xt þ ðn  1Þa ð5Þ
where a is the angular interval between two contiguous pistons
about the z-axis.
From Eqs. (1) to (5), we obtain the final absolute accelera-
tion of the centroid of the nth piston/slipper assembly as
an ¼ x2 Rðsin un i þ cos un jÞ  x2 R tan b cos un k ð6Þ
in which the first term on the right side represents the centrifu-
gal acceleration caused by the rotating motion along with the
cylinder block about the negative Z-direction, and the second
term represents the translational acceleration due to the recip-
rocating motion relative to the cylinder block.
According to d’Alembert’s principle, the centrifugal accel-
eration will generate a radial centrifugal force Fr, and the
translational acceleration will generate an axial inertia force
Fa. If we treat the piston and slipper as a whole analytical
object, then we may assume for convenience that the centrifu-
gal force is transferred to the cylinder block and the axial iner-
tia force is transferred to the swash plate. The reaction force
FN from the swash plate results in a remaining lateral force
FNy that produces the effect of cylinder block tilt, along with
the centrifugal force Fr. Thus, taking moment about the origin,
we obtain the cylinder block tilting inertia moment as follows:
X
N
MT ¼ qn  mx2 Rðsin un i þ cos un jÞ
n¼1
X
N
þ Ln  ðmx2 R tan2 b cos un jÞ ð7Þ
n¼1
172 J. ZHANG et al.

where m is the individual piston/slipper assembly mass, N is inertia moment in the negative X-direction, which results in the
the total number of pistons, and Ln is the moment arm of cylinder block tilting towards the bottom dead center (BDC),
the nth lateral force, which can be obtained by as shown in Fig. 4 where the gap between the cylinder block
Ln ¼ R sin un i þ R cos un j þ ðz0 þ R tan b cos un Þk ð8Þ and the valve plate has been magnified for illustration purpose.
In reality, the oil film thickness between the cylinder block and
where z0 is the distance from the shaft reaction to the XY plane the valve plate is usually on the order of magnitude of microns
as shown in Fig. 3. Substituting Eqs. (4) and (8) into Eq. (7), between 0 and 100 lm based upon measured and simulated
the cylinder block tilting inertia moment is given by results.26–29
" # It has to be pointed out that the tilting inertia moment MT
XN XN
MT ¼ mx R K12
cos un þ K2 cos un i
2 is exactly perpendicular to the moment acting on the cylinder
n¼1 n¼1 block by the pressure distribution along the discharge and
" #
X
N X
N intake sides, Mmean. This hydraulic moment is the traditional
þ mx R K3
2
sin un þ K4 sin un cos un j ð9Þ moment that determines the cylinder block balance about
n¼1 n¼1 the Y-axis. Therefore, this tilting inertia moment MT cannot
where be counteracted by Mmean directly, and a potential metal-to-
metal contact and an increased leakage flow are likely to occur
K1 ¼ zc  R tan b þ z0 tan2 b ð10Þ across the cylinder block/valve plate interface.
Although direct measurement of the oil film thickness
K2 ¼ R tan b sec2 b ð11Þ between the cylinder block and the valve plate at a high pump
speed was not carried out in this paper, previous experimental
K3 ¼ zc  R tan b ð12Þ investigations into the cylinder block/valve plate pair have
been performed at low pump speeds.26–28,36 In the literature36,
K4 ¼ R tan b ð13Þ
three micro position transducers GS1, GS2, and GS3 were
Considering that all pistons are nested in a circular array mounted between the cylinder block and the valve plate at cer-
within the cylinder block at equal angular intervals about the tain angular intervals, as shown in Fig. 5. Transducers GS1
Z-axis, then the following simplifications can be obtained and GS2 are located in the vicinity of the top dead center
due to mathematical symmetry: (TDC), and transducer GS3 is close to the BDC.
Fig. 6 gives the actual oil film thicknesses respectively
X
N X
N
cos un ¼ sin un ¼ 0 through three displacement transducers. It is found that the
n¼1 n¼1 oil film thickness between the cylinder block and the valve
X
N plate is significantly dependent on the pump speed. The oil film
sin un cos un ¼ 0 ð14Þ thicknesses measured through GS1 and GS2 increase with an
n¼1 increased pump speed, while the oil film thickness measured
X
N
N through GS3 decreases with an increased pump speed. This
cos2 un ¼
2 may be explained by the fact that the tilting effect of the cylin-
n¼1
der block due to the tilting inertia moment (see Eq. (15))
Finally, the cylinder block tilting inertia moment due to the strengthens with an increased pump speed, resulting in the
centrifugal and translational accelerations presented in Eq. (9) cylinder block tilting towards the BDC.
can be reduced to a simplified form as follows: The tilting effect of the cylinder block may not trigger
N catastrophic machine failures at a low pump speed. On one
MT ¼  K2 mx2 Ri þ 0j þ 0k ð15Þ hand, the occurrences of a hydrodynamic effect and a thermal
2
wedge effect between the cylinder block and the valve plate will
prevent the cylinder block from serious tilt. On the other hand,
3. Analysis and discussion a low pump speed means a small tilting inertia moment acting
on the cylinder block and thus will not bring a significant
It can be seen from Eq. (15) that the centrifugal and axial iner-
tia forces of the piston/slipper assembly only produce a tilting

Fig. 5 Transducer positions located between the cylinder block

Fig. 4 Cylinder block tilting towards the BDC. and the valve plate for oil film thickness measurement.
Analysis of the cylinder block tilting inertia moment
Fig. 6 Actual oil film thickness between the cylinder block and
the valve plate for a discharge pressure of 1.6 MPa.36
Fig. 7 Normalized tilting inertia moment of the cylinder block.
difference for the cylinder block balance. However, this tilting
effect can no longer be neglected once the EHA pump reaches
a high speed (e.g., more than 10000 r/min). Fig. 7 shows the
dependence of the tilting inertia moment on the pump speed
for different discharge pressures of 2, 5, 10, and 20 MPa.
It has to be noted that the tilting inertia moment value has
been normalized by the above mentioned hydraulic moment
Mmean as follows:37
 
2p R34  R33 R3  R31 a  a1 a
Mmean ¼  2 cos cos ð16Þ
9 lnðR4 =R3 Þ lnðR2 =R1 Þ 2 4
where p is the discharge pressure, R1 and R2 are the inside and
outside radii of the inner sealing land on the cylinder block,
respectively, R3 and R4 are the inside and outside radii of the
outer sealing land on the cylinder block, respectively, and a1
is the angular span of the cylinder block kidney, as depicted
in Fig. 8.
Fig. 7 indicates that the tilting inertia moment increases
dramatically with the pump speed since it is proportional to
the square of the pump speed as presented in Eq. (15). The tilt-
ing effect of the cylinder block due to the centrifugal and axial
inertia forces of the piston/slipper assembly may be negligible
at low speeds in engineering practice. However, it cannot be
ignored especially when the EHA pump operates at a high
speed and a low discharge pressure. For example, the tilting
inertia moment can be about 1.5 times of the hydraulic
moment produced by the pressure distribution between the
cylinder block and the valve plate when the EHA pump speed
173
Fig. 8 A schematic configuration of the cylinder block bottom
face.
reaches 20000 r/min. This considerable additional tilting iner-
tia moment may lead to metal-to-matal contact and wedge-
shaped oil film across the cylinder block/valve plate interface.
4. Experiments
In order to estimate the EHA pump performance at a high
rotational speed, a high-speed test rig that could provide a
drive speed up to16000 r/min was set up, as shown in Fig. 9.
It is important to underline that the performance tests were
conducted at variable rotational speeds from 1000 r/min to
9000 r/min for constant pressures of 2, 5, 10, and 20 MPa,
respectively. The swash plate was held in a fixed position at
a certain inclined angle with respect to the cylinder block dur-
ing the tests. The EHA pump prototype had a theoretical vol-
umetric displacement of 3 mL/r. The inlet oil temperature was
maintained at (20 ± 1) °C with the aim to eliminate the impact
of the inlet oil temperature on the pump performance as much
as possible.
As mentioned previously, a high rotational speed tends to
trigger the cylinder block tilting away from the valve plate,
resulting in subsequent increased leakage and potential wear
between the cylinder block and the valve plate. It seems that
the leakage flow from the cylinder block/valve plate should be
measured directly to investigate the effect of the cylinder block
tilting inertia moment on the EHA pump prototype perfor-
mance. However, it was extremely difficult for us to measure
the leakage flow from the cylinder block/valve plate interface
separately from other leakage sources such as the piston/cylin-
der block interface and the slipper/swash plate interface. There-
fore we measured the pump case drain leakage flow instead of
the leakage flow from the cylinder block/valve plate interface.
In addition, we paid our attention to the wear pattern of the slid-
ing surface between the cylinder block and the valve plate
attempting to predict the occurrence of cylinder block tilting.
The trend of the pump case drain leakage flow QL of the
investigated EHA pump prototype at different pump speeds
for discharge pressures of 2, 5, 10, and 20 MPa is shown in
Fig. 10(a). Fig. 10(a) highlights that the pump case drain leak-
age flow increases with an increased pump speed, which is con-
sistent with the tendency of the cylinder block tilting inertia
moment shown in Fig. 7. Furthermore, it can be seen from
174
Fig. 9 Test rig for performance tests on the high-speed EHA pump prototype.
Fig. 10 Pump case drain leakage flow vs pump speed for different discharge pressures of 2 MPa, 5 MPa, 10 MPa, and 20 MPa.
Fig. 10 that the pump case drain leakage flow at a speed higher
than 5000 r/min increases more sharply than that lower than
5000 r/min, which may be partly explained by the fact that
the tilting effect of the cylinder block is quite significant when
the EHA pump operates at a high rotational speed. It can be
observed from Eq. (15) that the cylinder block tilting inertia
moment is a function of the pump speed. However, the pump
case drain leakage flow is the comprehensive results of the
pump pressure and speed. In order to estimate the dependence
of the tilting effect of the cylinder block on the pump speed,
the relative pump case drain leakage flow is compared between
these four different discharge pressures. The relative pump
case drain leakage is defined as the ratio of the leakage flow
at a certain pump speed to that at 1000 r/min, QL1000.
Fig. 10(b) demonstrates that the pump case drain leakage flow
at a low pressure is more dependent on the pump speed than
that at a high pressure.
Considering that only comparing the measured pump case
drain leakage flow at a variety of pump speeds is not sufficient
enough to reveal the characteristics of the cylinder block tilting
behavior, more detailed investigation should be further pro-
vided. After accomplishing the general performance tests on
the EHA pump prototype, the EHA pump was dismantled
for the purpose of insight into the sliding surface between
the cylinder block and the valve plate, as shown in Fig. 11.
It can be observed that the non-sealing land of the cylinder
block suffered more severe wear than the sealing land, which
implies that the cylinder block was likely to tilt away from
the valve plate and consequently a metal-to-metal contact
between the cylinder block and the valve plate took place.
J. ZHANG et al.
By the way, it can be seen from the right-hand side of
Fig. 11 that an obvious wear difference of the valve plate slid-
ing surface appears between the intake and discharge sides,
which is attributed to the unbalanced hydraulic moment
between the discharge and intake sides. However, this kind
of wear is not the focus of this paper as there is sufficient liter-
ature concerned with it.26–30 At this point, much more atten-
tion will be given to the specified wear of the valve plate
sliding surface in the vicinities of the TDC and the BDC.
The sliding surface profiles of the cylinder block and the
valve plate were detected by a trilinear coordinates measuring
instrument and a surface roughness measuring instrument,
respectively, as shown in Fig. 12. In order to compare the sliding
surface profiles of the cylinder block before and after high-speed
tests, the relative heights (relative to a certain non-sliding plane)
of nine points located on the cylinder block sliding surface were
measured, as shown in Fig. 13. These nine measured points were
divided into three groups (i.e., A, B, and C), and each group had
three points. (i.e., Ai, Bi, and Ci, i = 1, 2, 3). These points of each
group were arranged in the same radial direction since the wear
difference of the sliding surface along the radial direction could
reflect the wear pattern of the sliding surface.
Fig. 14 shows the measured heights of all the points shown
in Fig. 13 before and after high-speed tests. It remains to be
noted that the horizontal coordinate represents the ID num-
bers of the points that are located in the same radial direction,
and the vertical coordinate represents the relative height of the
cylinder block sliding surface before and after tests. A smaller
relative height means an occurrence of more serious wear at
the corresponding location.
Analysis of the cylinder block tilting inertia moment
Fig. 11 Photograph of the sliding surface between the cylinder block and the valve plate after being dismantled.
Fig. 12 Sliding surface profile measurements of the cylinder block and the valve plate.
Fig. 13 Measured points located on the cylinder block sliding
surface.
It can be concluded that wear of the cylinder block sliding
surface took place during the pump operation by comparing
Fig. 14(a) and (b). In addition, the various relative height
reductions from point 1 to point 3 in each group in Fig. 14
(b) indicate that more serious wear occured near the outside
region of the cylinder block sliding surface than near the inside
region. In other words, the sliding surface of the cylinder block
that was subject to both the tilting inertia moment and the
175
unbalanced hydraulic moment changed from a flat configura-
tion to a convex configuration during rotation.
This finding confirms the existence of a cylinder block tilt
when the cylinder block rotates on the sliding surface of the
stationary valve plate. However, the cylinder block tilt cannot
be simply attributed to the tilting inertia moment described in
this paper without further investigation. As previously men-
tioned, the unbalanced hydraulic moment between the dis-
charge and intake sides can also result in a cylinder block tilt
and consequently lead to wear of the sliding surface between
the cylinder block and the valve plate. Therefore, the sliding
surface profile of the stationary valve plate needs to be mea-
sured, in combination with the measurement of the cylinder
block sliding surface profile.
As shown in Fig. 12, the probe of the surface roughness
measuring instrument moved along the TDC/BDC axis that
was in the same direction as the arrow. The real sliding surface
profiles at the TDC and BDC vicinities are demonstrated in
Fig. 15 from which it can be observed that the surface rough-
ness value in the vicinity of the BDC is smaller than that in the
vicinity of the TDC. This observation agrees with the previous
analysis in this research, which predicts that the tilting inertia
moment attempts to make the cylinder block tilt towards the
BDC, as shown in Fig. 4, and thus the sliding surface region
close to the BDC has more opportunity to get a metal-to-
metal contact than that close to the TDC. Furthermore, the
176
Fig. 14 Relative heights of measured points before and after high-speed tests.
Fig. 15 Surface roughness measurements in the TDC and BDC vicinities.
above observation partly explains the fact that the pump case
drain leakage flow increases dramatically with the pump speed
because a wedge-shaped oil film forms across the cylinder
block/valve plate interface due to the cylinder block tilt.
Additionally, comparing the wear condition between the
cylinder block and the valve plate, we find that the cylinder
block suffered more serious wear than the valve plate. This
is because the material of the cylinder block is soft brass while
that of the valve plate is nitrided steel.
5. Conclusions
The tilting inertia moment exerted on the cylinder block by
piston/slipper assemblies has been derived in this paper in
order to examine the effect of the tilting inertia moment on
the cylinder block tilt. Based on analytical and experimental
results, the following conclusions may be drawn:
1. The tilting inertia moment acting on the cylinder block by
the inertia forces of a piston/slipper assembly can be attrib-
uted to the centrifugal and translational accelerations of the
piston/slipper assembly.
J. ZHANG et al.
2. The tilting inertia moment produced by a piston/slipper
assembly has a significant effect on the cylinder block tilt.
This tilting effect attempts to make the cylinder block tilt
towards the BDC, which can give rise to the occurrence
of metal-to-metal contact between the cylinder block and
the valve plate in the vicinity of the BDC.
3. The cylinder block tilt due to the tilting inertia moment also
causes an obvious increase in the pump case drain leakage
flow because the cylinder block tilting behavior contributes
to a wedge-shaped oil film across the cylinder block/valve
plate interface.
4. The cylinder block tilt within an EHA pump is an inherent
phenomenon which cannot be ignored especially at high
speeds. In an EHA pump design, the tilting inertia moment
should be taken into account when performing the force
balance analysis of the cylinder block.
5. The tilting inertia moment acting on the cylinder block
could be reduced to some extent by introducing some novel
structures or parameter optimization for an EHA pump
design. For example, according to Eq. (15), light pistons
could be adopted instead of common ones to decrease the
tilting inertia moment.
Analysis of the cylinder block tilting inertia moment
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the National Basic Research
Program of China (No. 2014CB046403) and the National Nat-
ural Science Foundation of China (No. U1509204) for their
financial supports.
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