Tipping the Cylinder Block of an Axial-Piston Swash-Plate Type Hydrostatic Machine

Noah D. Manring
Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, University of MissouriColumbia, Columbia, MO 65211

Tipping the cylinder block within an axial-piston swash-plate type hydrostatic machine is a phenomenon that results in a momentary and sometimes permanent failure of the machine since the uid communication between the cylinder block and the valve plate is instantaneously lost. The efforts of this research are to identify the physical contributors of this phenomenon and to specify certain design guidelines that may be used to prevent the failure of cylinder block tipping. This research begins with the mechanical analysis of the machine and presents a tipping criterion based upon the centroidal location of the force reaction between the cylinder block and the valve plate. This analysis is followed by the derivation of the effective pressurized area within a single piston bore and the cylinder block balance is dened based upon this result. Using standard control volume analysis, the pressure within a single piston bore is examined and it is shown that an approximate pressure prole may be used in place of the more complex representation for this same quantity. Based upon the approximate pressure prole a design criterion is presented which ensures that the pressures within the system never cause the cylinder block to tip. Furthermore, if this criterion is satised, it is shown that the worst tipping conditions exist when the system pressures are zero and therefore a criterion governing the design of the cylinder block spring is presented based upon the inertial forces that contribute to the tipping failure. S0022-04340000901-1

Introduction
Background. Swash-plate type axial-piston machines are used within hydraulic circuitry for the efcient transmission of uid power. These machines may be used as pumps which provide hydraulic power to the circuit or as motors which convert hydraulic power into rotating mechanical power at the output of the circuit. Within the last thirty years an increased interest in their application has been observed and research pertaining to the optimal performance of these machines has appeared with more frequency in the literature. The topic of most interest for these machines has been the optimal control of the swash plate for variable displacement pumps as this control effort provides a signicant inuence on the dynamic response of the overall hydraulic system. Research of this type can be illustrated by the signicant publications of Manring and Johnson 1, Schoenau et al. 2, Kim et al. 3, and Zeiger and Akers 4. Another area of signicant interest for these machines has been the overall efciency of power transmission as their inefciency has historically been a vice for uid power transmissions compared to other transmission devices. Literature illustrating this interest would include research done by Pourmovahed 5, Ezato and Ikeya 6, and McCandlish and Dorey 7. Though many research efforts have been made in the area of machine control and performance, little academic attention has been paid to the machine design characteristic which describe the operating limits of the machine. One such topic pertains to the internal phenomenon of cylinder block tipping which may occur under various operating conditions. Machine Description. Figure 1 shows the general conguration of an axial-piston swash-plate type hydrostatic machine. The machine consists of several pistons within a common cylindrical block which are nested in a circular array within the block at equal intervals about the x-axis. As shown in Fig. 1, the cylinder block
Contributed by the Dynamic Systems and Control Division for publication in the JOURNAL OF DYNAMIC SYSTEMS, MEASUREMENT, AND CONTROL. Manuscript received by the Dynamic Systems and Control Division October 3, 1997. Associate Technical Editor: R. S. Chandran.

is held tightly against a valve plate using the force of the compressed cylinder-block spring and a less obvious pressure force which will be described later. A thin lm of oil separates the valve plate from the cylinder block which, under normal operating conditions, forms a hydrodynamic bearing between the two parts. A ball-and-socket joint connects the base of each piston to a slipper. The slippers themselves are kept in reasonable contact with the swash plate by a retainer not shown in Fig. 1 and a hydrodynamic bearing surface separates the slippers from the swash plate. The swash-plate angle is generally controlled by an external control mechanism but for the purposes of this research will be considered a xed position. While the valve plate is held in a xed position, the coupled shaft and cylinder block are driven about the x-axis at a angular speed, , which will also be considered a constant in the following analysis. During this motion, each piston periodically passes over the discharge and intake ports on the valve plate. Furthermore, because the slippers are held against the inclined plane of the swash plate, the pistons undergo an oscillatory displacement in and out of the cylinder block. As the pistons pass over the intake port, the piston withdraws from the cylinder block and uid is drawn into the piston bore. As the pistons pass over the discharge port, the piston advances into the cylinder block and uid is

Fig. 1 General machine conguration

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pushed out of the piston bore. This motion repeats itself for each revolution of the machine and the basic task of displacing uid is accomplished. If the discharge uid is at a higher pressure than the intake uid the machine is operating as a pump. If the intake uid is at a higher pressure than the discharge uid the machine is operating as a motor. Objectives. Figure 1 and the previous discussion have described the normal operation of an axial-piston swash-plate type hydrostatic machine; however, what may not be obvious from this discussion is that the cylinder block will tend to lift or tip away from the valve plate during various operating conditions. This phenomenon results in a momentary and sometimes permanent failure of the machine since the uid communication between the cylinder block and the valve plate is instantaneously lost. The efforts of this research are to identify the physical contributors of this phenomenon and to specify certain design guidelines that may be used to prevent the failure of cylinder block tipping. This research begins with the mechanical analysis of the machine and presents a tipping criterion based upon the centroidal location of the reaction force between the cylinder block and the valve plate. This analysis is followed by the derivation of the effective pressurized area within a single piston bore and the cylinder block balance is dened based upon this result. Using standard control volume analysis, the pressure within a single piston bore is examined and it is shown that an approximate pressure prole may be used in place of the more complex representation of this same quantity. Based upon the approximate pressure prole, a design criterion is presented which ensures that the pressures within the system never cause the cylinder block to tip. Furthermore, if this criterion is satised, it is shown that the worst tipping conditions exist when the system pressures are zero and therefore a criterion governing the design of the cylinder block spring is presented based upon the inertial forces that contribute to the tipping failure.

Fig. 3 Piston-slipper assembly free-body-diagram

y 0 F sh

n1

F F
N

y pn

(2)

and
z 0 F sh z pn

n1

(3)

Summing the moments acting on the cylinder block about the origin of the y- and z-axis and setting them equal to zero yields the following results:
z 0 F sh l s

n1

Fz pnl n F vE z

n1

A P r sin ,
b n n b n n

(4)

and
y 0 F sh l s

n1

Fy pnl n F vE y

n1

A P r cos ,

(5)

Governing Equations
Cylinder Block Free-Body-Diagram. The free-bodydiagram of the cylinder block is shown in Fig. 2. This diagram illustrates the reaction between the cylinder block and the shaft y z F sh , F sh , and T, the reaction between the n th piston and piston z bore F y p n and F p n , the reaction between the valve plate and the cylinder block ( F v ), the reaction between the cylinder block and the spring ( F sp), and the pressure force within the n th cylinder bore ( A b P n ). By summing the forces that act on the cylinder block in the x-direction and setting them equal to zero the following governing equation results: 0 F sp F v

where E y and E z locate the centroid of the valve-plate reaction force, F v . Piston-Slipper Assembly Free-Body-Diagram. The forces acting on a single piston-slipper assembly are shown in Fig. 3. These forces result from the pressure within the n th piston bore ( A p P n ), the equal and opposite reaction of the cylinder block z against the n th piston F y p n and F p n , and the net reaction between the n th slipper and the swash plate ( F swn ). Summing the forces acting on the n th piston-slipper assembly in the x-direction and setting them equal to the time rate-of-change of linear momentum for the entire assembly in this direction yields the following result: M r tan 2 sin n F swn cos A p P n , (6)

n1

AP
b

(1)

where A b is the effective pressurized area within a single piston bore of the cylinder block and will be discussed later. Similar to Eq. 1, the forces acting on the cylinder block in the y- and z-directions may be summed and set equal to zero as follows:

where M is the total mass of the piston-slipper assembly and is the shaft speed of the machine. Similar to Eq. 6, the governing equations of translational motion for the assembly in the y- and z-directions are given by M r 2 cos n F y pn , and M r 2 sin n F swn sin F z pn . (8) (7)

If it is assumed that the center-of-mass for the piston-slipper assembly is located within the vicinity of the piston-slipper balljoint it may be shown that the time rate-of-change of angular momentum for the piston-slipper assembly about the origin is equal to zero for constant swash-plate angles and shaft speeds. Summing the moments acting on the assembly about the z-axis and setting them equal to zero yields
Fig. 2 Cylinder block free-body-diagram

0 F swn cos A p P n r cos n F y pnl n .

(9)

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Symmetry Considerations. Since the piston bores are spaced evenly about the shaft axis in a circular array within the cylinder block, it may be shown that the following simplications arise due to symmetry:

n1

sin n

n1

cos n

n1

sin n cos n 0 N . 2

n1

sin2 n

n1

cos2

(10)

Tipping Criterion. The cylinder block will tip away from the 2 valve plate when the radial location, E 2 y E z , of the valve-plate reaction force, F v , exceeds the radial perimeter of the outer most point of potential contact on the cylinder block. This dimension, which equals R b for the design or radial perimeter, is given by R o shown in Fig. 2 and the tipping criterion is expressed mathematically as
E
2 E2 yEz R.

Fig. 5 A numerical pressure-prole for the n th piston exhibiting essentially no overshoot or undershoot in the transition regions

(11)

sign P b P C d A o dP d V o A p r tan sin

A p r tan cos .

Piston Pressure
Figure 4 shows a piston as it operates within its bore where the volume of uid within the bore is taken as the control volume of study. The pressure outside the piston bore, P b , is shown to vary with time to simulate the fact that as the cylinder block rotates about the x-axis, this pressure repeatedly changes from the discharge pressure, P d , to the intake pressure, P i . The discharge area of the piston bore, A o , is also shown to vary with time to model the transition regions on the valve plate where the slots provide a variable opening into each port. The pressure-rise-rate equation for the control volume shown in Fig. 4 may be derived based upon the conservation of mass and the denition of the uid bulk modulus. This result is given by dP dV Q . dt V dt

2 P b P (15)

(12)

If it is assumed that the ow in and out of the piston bore occurs at a high velocity and thus a high Reynolds-number the ow rate Q may be modeled using the classical orice equation given by Q sign P b P C d A o

2 P b P ,

(13)

where the sign function takes on the value 1 depending upon the sign of its argument, C d is the orice discharge-coefcient, and P b is the boundary pressure outside the control volume either P i or P d . The instantaneous volume of the n th piston-bore may be determined from geometry and is given by V V o A p r tan sin . (14)

Equation 15 is a nonlinear, rst-order, differential equation that must be solved numerically. Figure 5 shows a typical numerical result of Eq. 15. Note that both pressure, P, and port area, A o , are plotted in this gure. As shown in Fig. 5, the typical numerical solution to Eq. 15 demonstrates rather uninteresting behavior for the pressure, P. As the piston bore passes over either the intake port or the discharge port of the valve plate, the port area, A o , remains at a maximum constant. Within these regions, the pressure within the n th piston-bore also appears to remain fairly constant i.e., P P i or P d . The two ports on the valve plate are bridged by transition regions where A o goes from a maximum value to a minimum value, slowly grows within the transition slot, and then quickly returns to the original maximum value. As the n th piston-bore passes over the transition regions, the pressure changes almost linearly from one port pressure to the other. Figure 6 shows another result of this study where the pressure drop between ports has been reduced. Figure 6 represents a run using one sixth of the discharge pressure of Fig. 5. From Fig. 6 it can be seen that a lower pressure drop between ports tends to create signicant pressure spikes within the transition regions of the valve plate. The reason for this peculiarity is strictly a result of the volumetric compression and expansion within the chamber. In the rst case, the chamber volume decreases at a rate faster than the uid can squeeze out through the port. If the boundary pressure is not sufciently large compared to the starting pressure, volumetric compression of the uid will cause the pressure within the piston bore to overshoot the approaching boundary condition.

For a constant speed machine dt d / . Using this result with Eqs. 12, 13, and 14, the pressure rise-rate within a single piston chamber may be written as

Fig. 4 Schematic of a piston-bore control volume

Fig. 6 A numerical pressure-prole for the n th piston exhibiting overshoot and undershoot in the transition regions

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Fig. 7 Approximate pressure-prole. The magnitude of the discharge pressure is referenced from the magnitude of the intake pressure.

Fig. 8 A schematic of the pressure-prole on the cylinder block near the valve plate.

In the second case, the chamber volume increases at a rate faster than the uid can enter the piston bore. If the boundary pressure is not sufciently small compared to the starting pressure, the pressure within the piston bore will undershoot the approaching boundary pressure. In either case, the pressure relaxes itself back to the appropriate boundary condition once sufcient ow is permitted by an increase in discharge or intake area. Figures 5 and 6 show two different characteristics of the pressure within the piston bore. While both of these characteristics are real, it should be noted that the prole of Fig. 6 is encountered much less often than that of Fig. 5. In other words, the more uninteresting result is the more common. For this reason, it has become popular in industry to represent the pressure prole of the piston using the schematic of Fig. 7. This schematic emphasizes that the piston sees a constant pressure as it passes directly over either port and that it undergoes a transition in pressure as it passes over the slots on the valve plate. This transition occurs through some average angular-distance which is noted in Fig. 7 as . The angular distance, , is referred to as the pressure carry-over angle on the valve plate. Since Eq. 15 is complicated to solve, it is sometimes convenient to express the pressure within the n th piston bore using a discontinuous though much simpler expression. This expression assumes that the pressure remains constant as the piston passes over either the intake or discharge ports and that the pressure transition between ports occurs linearly over the range of the pressure carryover angle, . This expression is written as

considered to be constant and the governing uid equation is assumed to be the radial version of the static one-dimensional Reynolds equation given by dP d r 0, h3 dr dr

(17)

where r is now a general radial dimension away from the centerline of the cylinder block and P is the uid pressure at this location. Using this equation and the boundary conditions given by P b o ( r r b o ) P n and P b o ( r R b o ) 0, it can be shown that the pressure in the outer region of the diametrical land is given by P bo P n 1

ln r / r b o ln R b o / r b o

(18)

Similarly, using Eq. 17 and the boundary conditions given by P b i ( r r b i ) 0 and P b i ( r R b i ) P n the pressure within the inside region of the diametrical land on the cylinder block may be expressed P bi P n ln r / r b i ln R b i / r b i . (19)

By integrating Eqs. 18 and 19 over the entire area of their respective boundaries, adding the pressurized force acting on the center region of the diametrical land, and subtracting the force of each pressurized piston bore, the net pressure force acting on the cylinder block is given by 2

P n

where m ( P d P i )/ .

Pd P d m n /2 Pi P i m n 3 /2

3 /2 n /2

/2 n /2 /2 n 3 /2
3 /2 n 3 /2 ,

(16)

Rb

rb

P b o rdr 2

Rb

rb

2 P b i rdr P n r 2 b o R b i P n NA p

Pn

2 2 R bi r bi Pn P n NA p , 2 ln R b o / r b o 2 ln R b i / r b i

2 R2 bo r bo

(20)

Effective Pressurized Area

In the previous analysis an effective pressurized area within a single piston-bore, A b , was used to provide a pressure force that clamped the cylinder block onto the valve plate. In general, this force is a result of the effective pressurized area inside the piston bore minus the effective pressurized area outside the piston bore. Figure 8 illustrates both of these pressurized areas. To calculate the effective pressurized area outside the piston bore, one must consider three regions of the diametrical land on the cylinder block: an outer region, a center region, and an inner region. See Fig. 8. The pressurized area inside the piston bore is simply the area of a single piston, A p . To determine the effective pressurized area of a single piston bore it is assumed for calculation purposes that all piston bores are pressurized to the same level, P n . In this analysis the uid-lm thickness between the cylinder block and the valve plate, h, is Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control

where N is the total number of piston bores within the cylinder block. It can now be seen that Eq. 20 must equal NA b P n , where A b is the effective pressurized area within a single piston bore. This quantity may then be expressed
2 2 2 2 R bo r bo R bi r bi A b A p . 2 N ln R b o / r b o ln R b i / r b i

(21)

The result of Eq. 21 must be used to calculate the pressure clamping force within a single bore; however, it is more common in industry to talk about the cylinder-block balance, B b , rather than the effective pressurized area of a single piston bore, A b . These two quantities are related as follows: B b
2 2 2 rb R2 Rb bo r bo A p A b i i , Ap 2 NA p ln R b o / r b o ln R b i / r b i

(22)

where typical values for B b range between 0.90 and 1.00. MARCH 2000, Vol. 122 219

Design Considerations
General. Using the results presented in Eqs. 1 10, it may be shown that the instantaneous radial distance of the valve-plate reaction force relative to the centerline of the shaft is given by

n1

A b P n r cos n

n1

A p tan2 A b P n r sin n

n1

A p P n tan l s

N M r 2 2 tan 1 tan2 2

F sp

n1

AP
b

(23) To evaluate Eq. 23, the instantaneous results of Eq. 15 must be used to determine the pressure within each piston chamber of the machine. If an average result for Eq. 23 is desired, the summation signs may be replaced by ( N /2 ) 2 0 and the expressions to the right may be integrated with respect to n while using Eq. 16 to approximate the pressure within the n th piston chamber. This average result is given by

N A P Pir b d

N N N A p tan2 A b P d P i r A p P d P i tan l s M r 2 2 tan 1 tan2 2 2 2 N F sp A b P d P i 2

. (24)

To evaluate the tipping conditions of the cylinder block, these results should be used with Eq. 11. Pressure Criterion. For safety purposes it is important to design a cylinder block that never allows for tipping due to a sudden rise in pressure. By taking the limit of Eq. 24 as P d or P i goes to innity, and using the result of Eq. 11 it can be shown that the pressure criterion may be satised if

2r
2

tan tan2 l s 1 r 1Bb 1Bb

cylinder block tipping and therefore the worst tipping condition will occur when the pressures are zero. By neglecting the pressure terms in Eq. 24 or Eq. 23 and utilizing the tipping criterion of Eq. 11 it is clear that the centrifugal inertia moment of each piston-slipper assembly remains and that this tipping effect increases quadratically with the speed of the machine. Rearranging the terms of the tipping criterion for a nontipping cylinder block for the zero pressure condition yields the following design constraint for the cylinder-block spring: F sp
2 NM r 2 max tan 1 tan2

. R

(25)

Clearly, if l s and are zero, Eq. 25 is satised since the location of the valve-plate reaction will never exceed the piston pitch radius, r, as the pressure goes to innity. If l s remains zero, it may still be shown that reasonable values of will not cause the cylinder block to tip either. On the other hand, large values of l s may create problems and therefore this parameter should be designed as close to zero as possible. Physically speaking, the dimension l s describes the difference between the location where the cylinder block wants to carry the shaft load and where it actually does. The location of the desired load carrying point is given by the origin of the coordinate system in Fig. 2. This origin is dened by the point at the intersection of the shaft centerline and the plane which intersects each piston-slipper ball-joint and must necessarily lie outside the main body of the cylinder block. For this reason cylinder blocks utilize a block hub which extends over the desired load carrying point on the shaft i.e., the origin of the coordinate system in Fig. 2. A gross illustration of violating this principle would be to place the cylinder-block/shaft connection at the other end of the cylinder block which is near the valve plate. While this would provide an adequate means for exerting torque on the cylinder block about the shaft centerline, it would provide an inadequate means for resisting the side load between the cylinder block and the shaft. This design would result in a large value for l s which would most likely violate Eq. 25 and create a large pressure moment about the y-axis. For a design of this type the cylinder block would tip away from the valve-plate as the working pressures increased. Inertia Criterion. If Eq. 25 is satised, it can been shown that the cylinder block will never tip due to increased pressures within the system. Furthermore, it may also be shown that increased pressures for a design of this type will actually resist 220 Vol. 122, MARCH 2000

2R

(26)

where max is the maximum operating speed of the machine. It should be emphasized that the machine may run successfully at speeds which exceed max provided that a sufcient pressure is maintained within the system to resist the inertial component.

Conclusion
This research has been aimed at identifying the physics that contribute to the tipping of the cylinder block within an axialpiston swash-plate type machine. In particular, it has been shown that the cylinder block will tip away from the valve plate when the radial location of the valve-plate reaction force exceeds the radial perimeter of the outer most point of potential contact on the cylinder block. This tipping criterion is mathematically shown in Eq. 11. The instantaneous and average radial location of the valveplate reaction is shown in Eqs. 23 and 24, respectively. In general, it is noted that two types of phenomena may contribute to the tipping of the cylinder block: 1 pressure forces and 2 centrifugal inertia forces. To avoid cylinder block tipping due to pressure forces the design criterion of Eq. 25 must be satised. This criterion illustrates the importance of the cylinder block hub as its proper location ensures that a pressure moment will not be exerted on the cylinder block about the y-axis. To avoid tipping due to inertia forces, the design criterion of Eq. 26 must be satised. This criterion shows that the assembled load of the cylinder block spring must be sufciently large relative to the inertial components. This equation provides a guideline for designing the cylinder block spring and identies the no-load speed limitations of the machine. Transactions of the ASME

Nomenclature
Ab Ao Ap Bb Cd Ey Ez Fy pn effective pressurized area within a single piston bore discharge ow area area of a single piston cylinder block balance discharge coefcient location of the valve-plate reaction in the y-direction location of the valve-plate reaction in the z-direction n th piston reaction in the y-direction n th piston reaction in the z-direction shaft reaction in the y-direction shaft reaction in the z-direction assembled spring load swash plate reaction on the n th slipper valve-plate reaction uid lm thickness location of the n th piston reaction location of the shaft reaction mass of a single piston-slipper assembly pressure transition slope total number of pistons counter e.g., the n th piston uid pressure boundary pressure either P i or P d pressure across the inner region of the diametrical land pressure across the outer region of the diametrical land discharge pressure intake pressure volumetric ow rate outermost radial point of contact on the cylinder block outside radius of the inner region of the diametrical land

Fz pn y F sh z F sh F sp F swn Fv h ln ls M m N n P Pb P bi P bo Pd Pi Q R R bi

R bo r r bi r bo T t V Vo

outside radius of the outer region of the diametrical land piston pitch radius; radial dimension inside radius of the inner region of the diametrical land inside radius of the outer region of the diametrical land shaft torque reaction on the cylinder block time instantaneous piston volume piston volume at zero swash-plate angle swash plate angle uid bulk modulus pressure carry-over angle rotation dimension about the shaft centerline uid mass density angular shaft and cylinder block speed

References
1 Manring, N., and Johnson, R., 1996, Modeling and designing a variabledisplacement open-loop pump, ASME J. Dyn. Syst., Meas., Control, 118, pp. 267271. 2 Schoenau, G., Burton, R., and Kavanagh, G., 1990, Dynamic Analysis of a Variable Displacement Pump, ASME J. Dyn. Syst., Meas., Control, 112, pp. 122132. 3 Kim, S., Cho, H., and Lee, C., 1987, A Parameter Sensitivity Analysis for the Dynamic Model of a Variable Displacement Axial Piston Pump, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 201, pp. 235243. 4 Zeiger, G., and Akers, A., 1985, Torque on the Swashplate of an Axial Piston Pump, ASME J. Dyn. Syst., Meas., Control, 107, pp. 22026. 5 Pourmovahed, A., 1992, Uncertainty in the efciencies of a hydrostatic pump/motor, Proceedings of the Winter Annual Meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Anaheim, CA. 6 Ezato, M., and Ikeya, M., 1986, Sliding Friction Characteristics Between a Piston and a Cylinder for Starting and Low-Speed Conditions in the Swashplate-Type Axial Piston Motor, 7th International Fluid Power Symposium, Bath, England. 7 McCandlish, D., and Dorey, R., 1981, Steady-State Losses in Hydrostatic Pumps and Motors. 6th International Fluid Power Symposium, St. Johnss Colleges, Cambridge, England.

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