This PhD thesis experimentally studies the volumetric efficiency of gerotor pumps in aero-engine gas turbine oil systems. This efficiency is the ratio of the effective measured flow rate and the theoretical flow rate computed based on pump displacement. In case of low inlet pressure and high rotational speed, which is often the case in aeronautical applications, the pump performance is severely affected by cavitation. This phase change from liquid to vapour causes a large portion of the flow to be occupied by gas, reducing the volume available for the liquid and reducing the overall mass flow rate. Due to its nature, the lubrication oil used in gas turbine engines is subjected to aeration which is the dissolution of air in oil. The air is dissolved in the liquid at high ambient pressure and released at lower pressure causing more air to occupy the cavities inside the pump. The change in liquid aeration is a relatively slower phenomenon causing the variation of aeration to be delayed with respect to the actual pressure and therefore varying also accordingly to the previous oil condition.The essential part of the work presented in this thesis is based on experimental research realised at the ATM department. This was conducted on a dedicated oil system test rig. This rig is build to reproduce the complete set of operating conditions encountered in a flying embedded oil system. This test rig was modified and equipped with several specific measurement systems to acquire data on pump performance and oil aeration. Precisely, a series of single-phase performance characterisations and transients have been recorded. The oil aeration was measured with two density-based instruments. The pump outlet pressure was recorded with a high-frequency pressure transducer. A new set-up of the test rig was also developed to allow the testing of pumps in two-phase flows conditions. Two-phase flows performance characterisations and transients have then also been studied.The data processing provided information necessary to build empirical models and to understand pump and cavitation behaviours. The focus is on pump performance in cavitation. This justify the extensive use of the cavitation number indicating the tendency of a flow to experience cavitation in given conditions. The base models can be used to determine if a given condition leads to cavitation or not, and predict the pump efficiency in both cases. The high-frequency pressure measurements provided an efficient tool to detect cavitation. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur et technologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ulb.ac.be/oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/275872 |
| Date | 20 August 2018 |
| Creators | Ippoliti, Laurent |
| Contributors | Hendrick, Patrick, Degrez, Gérard, Parente, Alessandro, Rundo, Massimo M.R., Flouros, Michael, Cornet, Albert A.C. |
| Publisher | Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Université libre de Bruxelles, Ecole polytechnique de Bruxelles – Mécanicien, Bruxelles |
| Source Sets | Université libre de Bruxelles |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, info:ulb-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, info:ulb-repo/semantics/openurl/vlink-dissertation |
| Format | No full-text files |
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