<div>Positive displacement machines are used in a wide variety of applications, ranging from fluid power where they act as a transmission of power, to lubrication and fluid transport. As the core of the fluid system responsible for mechanical--hydraulic energy conversion, the efficiencies of these units are a major driver of the total efficiency of the system. Furthermore, the durability of these units is a strong decider in the useful life of the system in which they operate.</div><div><br></div><div>The key challenge in designing these units comes from understanding their working principles and designing their lubricating interfaces, which must simultaneously perform a load carrying and sealing function as the unit operates. While most of the physical phenomena relevant to these machines have been studied previously in some capacity, the significance of their mutual interactions has not. For this reason, the importance of these mutual interactions is a fundamental question in these machines that this thesis answers for the first time. In analysis of two different machine types, it is confirmed that mutual interactions of both physical phenomena and neighboring fluid domains of the unit contribute significantly to the overall performance of the machine. Namely, these analyses demonstrate load sharing owing to mutual interactions on average of 20% and as high as 50%, and mutual flow interactions of at least 10%.</div><div><br></div><div>In this thesis, the behavior of the thin films of fluid in the lubricating interfaces of the units, the bodies that make up these films, and the volumes which interface with them will be considered. The resulting coupled problem requires a model that can consider the effects of motion of all floating bodies on all films and volumes, and collect the resulting loads applied by the fluid as it responds. This will require a novel 6 degree of freedom dynamics model including the inertia of the bodies and the transient pressure and shear loads of all interfaces of the body and the fluid domain.</div><div><br></div><div>During operation, fluid cavitation and aeration can occur in both the displacement chambers of the machine and its lubricating interfaces. To capture this, a novel cavitation algorithm is developed in this thesis, which considers the release of bubbles due to both gas trapped within the fluid and vaporization of the operating fluid in localized low pressure regions of the films. In the absence of cavitation, this model will also be used to find the pressures and flows over the film, communicating this information with the remainder of the fluid domain.</div><div><br></div><div>Due to the high pressures that form in these units, the bodies deform. The resulting deformation changes the shape of the films and therefore its pressure distribution. This coupled effect will be captured in one of two ways, the first relying on existing geometric information of the unit, and the other using a novel analytical approach that is developed to avoid this necessity. In either case, the added damping due to the shear of the materials will be considered for the first time. Additionally in regions of low gap height, mixed lubrication occurs and the effects of the surface asperities of the floating bodies cannot be neglected. Accurate modeling of this condition is necessary to predict wear that leads to failure in these units. This work will then develop a novel implementation for mixed lubrication modeling that is directly integrated into the cavitation modeling approach.</div><div><br></div><div>Finally, effort is made to maintain a generic tools, such that the model can be applied to any positive displacement machine. This thesis will present the first toolbox of its kind, which accounts for all the mentioned aspects in such a way that they can be captured for any machine. Using both multithreaded and sequential implementations, the tool will be capable of fully utilizing a machine on which it is run for both low latency (design) and high throughput (optimization) applications respectively. In order to make these applications feasible, the various modules of the tool will be strongly coupled using asynchronous time stepping. This approach is made possible with the development of a novel impedance tensor of the mixed universal Reynolds equation, and shows marked improvements in simulation time by requiring at most 50% of the simulation time of existing approaches.</div><div><br></div><div>In the present thesis, the developed tool will be validated using experimental data collected from 3 fundamentally different machines. Individual advancements of the tool will also be verified in isolation with comparison to the state of the art and commercial software in the relevant fields. As a demonstration of the use of the tool for design, detailed analysis of the displacing actions and lubricating interfaces of these same units will be performed. These validations demonstrate the ability of the tool to predict machine efficiencies with error averaging around 1% over all operating conditions for multiple machine types, and capture transient behavior of the units. To demonstrate the utility as a virtual optimization tool, design of a complete external gear machine design will be performed. This demonstration will start from only analytical parameters, and will track a route to a complete prototype.</div>

In this paper, a simulation study is carried out for the development of concepts to optimize the tribological contact of valve plate and cylinder block in an axial piston machine in swash plate design. The valve plate/cylinder block contact is one of the three essential tribological contacts in axial piston machines. In a research project at the Institute for Fluid Power Drives and Systems (ifas), this contact is investigated by a specifically designed simulation tool. In addition, a test rig exists for the experimental investigation. With the results of simulation and experiment, it was shown before that the cylinder block is tilting to the high pressure side. Due to this movement, the gap height is not constant. In the area of minimum gap height, not only the fluid friction, but also the danger of solid body friction increases. Because of the higher friction losses in the area of minimum gap height, the temperature increase reduces the lifetime of the leaded coatings. In this paper, the results of the measurements as well as the simulation model are briefly summarized. It is followed by a simulation study of different possibilities to raise the gap height. Based on this pre-study, a first concept for the optimization of the tribological contact valve plate/cylinder block is presented and its applicability is discussed.

<p>Emission regulations and global policies to tackle climate change have forced industries and businesses to take measures to curb their impact on the environment. According to the United Nations Environment Program 2022 report on emissions [1], the transportation sector contributes to one-quarter of all energy-related CO2 emissions, and it is set to double by 2050. A recent report [2] suggests that off-road vehicles and equipment account for three-quarters of particulate matter and one-quarter of the nitrogen oxides emitted from mobile transportation sources in the US. The major challenge in decarbonizing or electrifying off-road machines is that they come in a wide range of sizes, weights, and functions, creating barriers to bringing down costs through economies of scale. Fluid power systems which are ubiquitous in these machines have been electrified in a compact and efficient manner to break even the costs of electrification. </p> <p>In off-road applications, where actuation systems heavily depend on hydraulics, there is a high demand for novel systems based on electric prime movers that can enable zero-carbon emission vehicles. An appropriate combination of electric prime movers and hydraulic machines commonly known as electrohydraulic units (EHUs) can help leverage the benefits of both these technologies. The integration of these two technologies in a single casing shaftless EHU can further maximize compactness and reduce cost. However, to achieve such an integrated EHU there is no standard procedure or recommended guidelines for equipment manufacturers owing to the interdisciplinary nature of the problem. </p> <p>This study proposes a generic design methodology to design electrohydraulic units (EHUs). As a starting point, a survey study was undertaken to compare different combinations of electric and hydraulic machines when designing an EHU. The different combinations were investigated for different operating drive cycles for their performance as well as other factors such as power-to-weight, cost, and the possibility of variable displacement. An axial piston machine (APM) was selected as a hydraulic machine (HM) to be integrated with a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) as the electric machine. </p> <p>The design methodology is demonstrated for an integrated electrohydraulic architecture with the APM housed inside the core of the PMSM. Such an architecture not only makes the overall integration much more compact but also allows for better thermal management of the EM. In such an architecture, the EM governs the overall power density of the integration and the total mass of the integration owing to inherent torque density differences. An EM design optimization is adopted for a predefined HM architecture to design the proposed EHU integration. The design optimization is used to quantify the effect of key EHU design specifications on the EM size and performance. EHU specifications such as sizing torque, operating voltage, aspect ratio, cooling efficacy, number of poles, and power-to-weight ratio have been studied to draw generic trends. These generic trends in the design specifications are used to outline clear guidelines on the impact of each of the EHU specifications for future EHU designers.</p> <p>Using the generic design trends, the design methodology is extended to size the EHU based on typical operating demands using the HM variable displacement, EM overload capability, and the EM flux weakening operation. These sizing studies allow the designers to size the EHU for the specific drive cycle operating demands and avoid oversizing the EHU. The EM flux weakening mode of operation allows the EM to be sized for a peak power level lower than the corner power of operation. The EM overload operation allows a reduction in the sustainable sizing torque lower than that of the maximum torque demand. The variable displacement in the HM can be used for improving overall EHU efficiency when selecting a low voltage or using a compact EM as well as to reduce the EM sizing torque. Two operation algorithms are proposed to define the EHU operation using variable displacement. Additionally, the sizing of a single EHU for multiple applications is also demonstrated. Such multi-utility EHU sizing can promote mass production and improve the rate of electrification in off-road machines.</p> <p>Finally, a prototype-tested EHU design based on the sizing study is demonstrated and the design considerations in such a design process are discussed. The prototype of the integrated EHU with a fixed displacement APM was able to reach the full capability of the reference APM. Thermal considerations are made on the EM sizing, to ensure the reliability of the designed EHU.  A novel self-sustained EHU architecture using the HM working fluid as a cooling fluid for the EM was designed. This was achieved by proposing a three-port valveplate design to divert part of the delivery stroke to cool the EM. A lumped parameter HM model was used to optimize this third port for an EHU prototype.</p>