Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, (2019), xxx(xx): xxx–xxx

Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics

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

Hydraulic piston pump in civil aircraft: Current

status, future directions and critical technologies
Shengrong GUO a,b, Jinhua CHEN a,b, Yueliang LU a,b, Yan WANG c,*,
Hongkang DONG c

a
Nanjing Engineer Institute of Aircraft System Jincheng, AVIC, Nanjing 211100, China
b
Aviation Science and Technology Key Laboratory of Aero Electromechanical System Integration, Nanjing 211100, China
c
School of Transportation Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100083, China

Received 7 November 2018; revised 13 December 2018; accepted 2 January 2019

KEYWORDS Abstract The piston pump is the key power component in the civil aircraft hydraulic system, and
Civil aircraft; the most common pump used in the aviation field is the pressure compensated variable displace-
Engine driven pump; ment type. In this review paper, a basic introduction to the civil aircraft piston pump is presented,
High pressure; including the classification, structure, working principle, design features, and achievements by some
Inlet boost; research groups. Then, the future directions of the aircraft pump are reported from various perspec-
Intelligent control; tives. Further, the critical technologies are analyzed and summarized in detail from six thrust areas:
Lubricating gaps; friction couples, noise reduction, inlet boost, thermal management, fault diagnosis and health man-
Piston pumps; agement, and mechanical seal. Finally, the challenges and limitations of the research on the aircraft
Pulsation reduction pump are discussed to provide valuable insight for future scholars.
Ó 2019 Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of Chinese Society of Aeronautics and
Astronautics. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction Due to their compact and simple design, swash plate type axial
piston pumps are widely used in the aviation field, and they are
In the hydraulic system of civil aircraft, the piston pump is one capable of working at extremely high pressures and speed
of the most critical power components.1 The pumps convert while maintaining high overall efficiency.
mechanical energy into hydraulic energy, supplying power to High pressure, high power, integration and intelligent con-
the actuators to fulfill the flight posture adjustment, and trol are the main trends of the fluid power systems in modern
retraction and extension of the landing gear and braking. civil aircraft. The characteristics of civil aircraft, such as high
reliability, safety and a long service life, also present technical
* Corresponding author. requirements of the pump. Unlike industrial pumps, high
E-mail address: wybuaa@buaa.edu.cn (Y. WANG). speed aviation piston pumps may encounter many challenges:
Peer review under responsibility of Editorial Committee of CJA. cavitation caused by low inlet pressure, large pulsation and
noise, and tipping of rotating components. These undesirable
phenomena could reduce the volumetric efficiency and aggra-
vate the fatigue wear, eventually leading to a short life of the
Production and hosting by Elsevier
pump. In addition, the highly compact design of the hydraulic
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2019.01.013
1000-9361 Ó 2019 Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article in press as: GUO S et al. Hydraulic piston pump in civil aircraft: Current status, future directions and critical technologies, Chin J Aeronaut
(2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2019.01.013
2 S. GUO et al.

system weakens heat dissipation, which can easily cause an

extremely rapid temperature increase and function failure.
Although some of the challenges have drawn considerable
attention, many problems remain unsolved.
The authors have read a great number of previous litera-
tures and this review attempts to outline systematically the cur-
rent state of the hydraulic pumps in civil aircrafts and major
problems faced by designers and researchers. It is organized
as follows: In Section 2, the working principle and design
features of the typical aircraft piston pump are presented, fol-
lowed by a brief introduction into the impressive achievements
made by some research groups in Section 3. The future
directions are described in Section 4. Section 5 summarizes
the critical technologies and describes some research break-
throughs in detail. Finally, concluding remarks about this
review paper are given in Section 6.
Fig. 1 Cross-section view of a typical civil aircraft pump.4
2. Working principle and design features

2.1. Classification and structure principle

The aircraft pump can be divided into fixed and variable dis-
placement pumps. Fixed displacement pumps provide the flow
that is directly proportional to the speed of rotation, with the
ratio being the displacement of the pump and expressed as a
volume per revolution. Variable displacement pumps can vary
their displacements in response to some control mechanism.
Due to their more compact and simple design, fixed displace-
ment pumps can still be found in many applications, such as
electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA), and breaking and steering
systems. Variable displacement pumps are typically used in
central hydraulic systems characterized by multiple consumers
where pump output is controlled by the means other than Fig. 2 Flow-pressure characteristic (flat cut-off).4
pump speed. Table 1 provides the classification of some com-
monly used pumps.
Currently, the flat cut-off pressure compensated type is the The preload on the pressure compensator spring determines
most commonly used for variable displacement control of air- the system pressure at which the pump begins regulating.
craft pumps, which can provide nearly constant pressure at Compressing the spring (increasing preload) causes the pump
pump output at all flows lower than the maximum flow capac- to regulate at a higher pressure, and conversely, relaxing the
ity of the pump.2 Without too much wastage of power, this spring (decreasing preload) provides regulation at a lower
type of pump can meet the continuous demand for the pump pressure.
throughout a flight with frequent variations in magnitude.3
Fig. 1 illustrates the cross-section view of a typical variable dis- 2.2. Design features
placement pump in the aircraft hydraulic system. As the drive
shaft rotates, the pistons reciprocate within the cylinder block The original concept of piston pumps can date back to the
bores. The piston shoes are held against a bearing surface by 16th century, when Ramelli developed a piston pump to draw
compression force during the discharge stroke and by the shoe water in mines.5 However, it was not until 1905 that American
hold-down plate and retainer during the intake stroke. The engineer Reynold designed the first valve plate type hydraulic
pump displacement can be adjusted by changing the angle of pump for the steering system in naval vessels and introduced
the yoke through an actuator piston, which is driven by the mineral oil as the transmission medium, which was the prelude
control pressure oil out from the compensator valve. The char- to modern hydraulics. During the following decades, the opti-
acteristic curve of the flow and pressure is shown in Fig. 2.4 mization and modification based on Reynold’s pump never
stopped, and particularly in the 1950s, Denison and Lucas
designed a novel swash plate pump which increased the pres-
Table 1 Types of some commonly used pumps. sure up to 35 MPa, marking a leap for the piston pump. After
No. Name Type World War II, the piston pump began to be used in civil air-
craft, and specific designs had to be developed in order to
1 Engine driven pump (EDP) Variable
adapt to the harsh conditions in high altitude. As the world
2 Electric motor pump (EMP) Variable/fixed
3 Air driven pump (ADP) Variable leaders in aerospace hydraulic systems and components, Eaton
4 Power transfer unit (PTU) Variable/fixed and Parker continually develop their products with extensive
analysis and verification tests, and at present hydraulic pumps

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(2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2019.01.013
Hydraulic piston pump in civil aircraft: Current status, future directions and critical technologies
have incorporated numerous design features to enhance the
efficiency, reliability and maintainability of the unit.4,6
2.2.1. Centrifugal boost impeller
For the suction performance at low inlet pressures, an impeller
is used to ensure that the piston bores fill properly. The impel-
ler adds the length and weight of the pump, but results in
weight reduction and increased reliability of the overall system.
2.2.2. Attenuation
The attenuator minimizes outlet pressure pulsations in the air-
craft hydraulic system. This reduces the wear on the compo-
nents downstream of the pump, thus improving the overall
reliability of the hydraulic system.
2.2.3. Electrical depressurization valve (EDV)
Energizing the EDV will port outlet pressure to a depressuriz-
ing position; therefore, the leakage is circulated at a low pres-
sure instead of the rated pressure during idle periods, and the
power loss is further reduced. Additionally, owing to the EDV,
the outlet pressure can build up rather rapidly.
2.2.4. Blocking valve
Incorporated in conjunction with a depressurization circuit,
the outlet blocking valve is hydraulically balanced for rapid
response and ease of manufacture. Viscous dampening of the
blocking valve piston retards the closure rate to allow suffi-
cient decompression of the outlet fluid of the system prior to
the valve closure.
2.2.5. Gerotor
A gerotor ensures case drain flow against the maximum back
pressure of the system at the case drain port, decreasing the
operating temperature of the rotating group and minimizing
the pressure loads on the rotating group components.
2.2.6. Rotating mechanical seal
A mechanical seal is composed of a rotating ring and a static
one, with the former sliding against the latter. The static one
is generally made of high quality materials such as bearing
grade bronze or carbon. The interface between these two ele-
ments ensures the sealing of the fluid in high speed cases.
3. Research focuses
In order to understand the physical phenomena of the piston
pump, early researchers generally conducted theoretical analy-
sis assisted with simplified test devices. In the 1960s, Yam-
aguchi derived the formula for calculating the pressure
change in the cylinder to reveal the effects of trapping phenom-
ena and the pressure ripple.7 In the following decades, he and
his colleagues continued researching the motion of pistons
inside the cylinder bores and the lubricating characteristics of
the friction interfaces.8–15 In 1980, Rvachev and Slesarenko
calculated the temperature distribution in the cylinder block
of an axial piston pump, and the results were compared with
the experiment.16 Edge and others from the Fluid Power Cen-
tre in University of Bath first carried out the theoretical and
experimental study of the pressure fluctuations generated by
hydraulic pumps.17–20 In the 1990s, this team remarkably
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(2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2019.01.013
3
introduced a creative method for measuring the source flow
ripple and source impedance of hydraulic pumps.21 This
method was the ‘secondary source’ method, adopted as the
ISO standard in 1996.22 Although the early works were
impressive, their deviation from actual results is significant
due to the limitations of computing capabilities and test
conditions.
In the 21st century, the rapid development of computer
technology and numerical methods has witnessed the wide
use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and virtual pro-
totyping technology in various research areas of the piston
pump, enabling the multi-domain analysis in complex models.
Focusing on the research of the axial piston pump, several
active research teams have made numerous achievements in
recent years. The Maha Fluid Power Research Center (Maha),
led by Ivantysynova, continuously carries out the design and
optimization of pumps and motors. The simulation program
Calculation of Swash Plate Type Axial Piston Pump/Motor
(CASPAR) was developed as a design tool for optimizing
swash plate machines based on non-isothermal gap flow mod-
els of critical lubricating interfaces.23–25 The program allows
the calculation of real flow ripples at both ports, the calcula-
tion of the instantaneous cylinder pressure, the internal and
external volumetric losses, viscous friction forces, gap heights,
and oscillating forces and moments exerted on the swash
plate.26–34 Another research interest of Maha is noise genera-
tion and reduction. Kim and Ivantysynova investigated swash
plate active vibration control (AVC) techniques with two-
weight notch least mean square/filtered-x least mean square
(LMS/FxLMS) filters. Utilizing the proposed controllers, their
tests showed effective swash plate vibration reductions at the
targeted frequency.35,36 In addition, Vacca et al. investigated
the cavitation in the hydraulic pumps by lumped parameter
and CFD approaches.37–39 The institute for fluid power drives
and controls (IFAS) of RWTH Aachen University has a spe-
cial group for the research and development of hydrostatic dis-
placement units. Its work is oriented towards improving the
tribological performance and using new materials and surface
coatings.40–45 Manring, a professor from the University of
Missouri-Columbia, investigated the noise reduction through
optimizing the valve-plate slot geometries46 and altering the
trajectory of the piston travel.47 Recently, he focused on the
improvement of power density48,49 and operating effi-
ciency.50,51 Division Fluid and Mechatronic Systems
(FLUMES) at Linköping University has a long tradition in
research into hydraulic pumps and motors. The main focus
in many projects has been the methods of measurement and
simulation of flow pulsations in the pumps, which has pro-
duced several innovations and methods to significantly reduce
noise.52–54 Additionally, the team also investigated and ana-
lyzes the displacement control of pumps via the comparison
between pressure and flow control.55 The researchers in Car-
diff University, under the direction of Prof. Watton, carried
out some investigations on flow ripple, pump leakage, barrel
dynamics and lubricating interface via numerical and experi-
mental methods.56–60 Particularly, they measured the pressure
ripple inside the pistons chambers for the first time using extre-
mely small pressure transducers, and the technology might be a
solution for fault diagnosis analysis.
The State Key Lab of Fluid Power & Mechatronic Systems
(SKLoFP), Zhejiang University, is the most important
research center in the field of fluid power in China, which
4 S. GUO et al.
has conducted much work on the high speed aircraft piston
pump. Xu and Song optimized the structure of the pre-
compression volume and the valve-plate slots to reduce flow
ripple.61–63 Zhang and Chao investigated the cylinder block tilt
in a high-speed electro-hydrostatic actuator pump of aircraft,
considering the effect of piston-slipper assembly mass differ-
ence and the geometric errors of the cylinder block.64–67
Ouyang et al. conducted dynamic analyses of the swash plate
vibration and pressure pulsation of an aircraft piston pump
based on fluid-structure interactions (FSIs),68 and presented
the attenuating characteristics of the integrated buffer
bottles.69,70
In addition, the researchers from Beihang University have
carried out effective studies and achieved significantly in fault
diagnosis, and prognostics and health management (PHM) of
aviation mechatronic systems and components. Wang et al.
analyzed the failure mechanism of high-speed aircraft pumps,
and presented the fault diagnosis methods based on the layered
clustering algorithm,71 Dempster–Shafer evidence theory72
and a nonlinear unknown input observer.1 Ma et al. studied
the typical failure modes of the aircraft hydraulic pump such
as wear, fatigue, and thermal aging, and proposed the acceler-
ated lifetime test methods including strengthening the load and
worsening the operation conditions.73–77
The civil aircraft pump is a typical component which has
the characteristics of multi-domains (mechanical, electronic
and hydraulic) and multi-scales (from microns to the decimeter
level). It is necessary to develop fully coupled simulation mod-
els in order to comprehend the physical phenomena. Addition-
ally, the advanced data acquisition systems and test methods
contribute to obtaining the information unavailable before,
such as the high frequency pressure fluctuation, and film char-
acteristics of lubricating interfaces.
4. Future directions
According to the analysis of current literatures, the future
directions of civil aircraft pumps are likely to move toward
the followings: (a) high pressure; (b) low pulsation; (c) high
reliability and long service life; (d) intelligence and energy-
saving; (e) intelligence and energy-saving.
4.1. High pressure
High pressure is conductive to reducing the size and weight of
fluid power equipment, and improving the capability and
maneuverability of aircraft. Fig. 3 shows the operational pres-
sure used in different types of aircraft. In the 1950s, Martin
Fig. 3 Operational pressure used in different types of aircraft.
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(2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2019.01.013
proposed to the Air Force that 3000 psi (21 MPa) pressure
was a practical upper limit of aircraft hydraulic systems, which
remained in effect for a long time.78 It was in this period that
aircraft hydraulic systems used a constant pressure variable
pump as the power supply source. Rockwell performed some
simulations and experiments to prove that the optimal fluid
pressure of aircraft hydraulic systems is 8000 psi (56 MPa).79
Studies have shown that the Airbus A380 was able to reduce
its overall weight by 1 T after adopting a 5000 psi hydraulic
system.80 Comparative studies showed that by increasing the
hydraulic pressure from 3000 psi (21 MPa) to 8000 psi
(56 MPa), the weight of a hydraulic system can be reduced
by 30%, whereas its volume can be reduced by 40%.81 There-
fore, super-high pressure is a future direction.
However, the increasing demand for high pressure leads to
some problems. First, the power loss of pumps is proportional
to the square of pressure, which means that increasing the fluid
pressure will result in increased leakage in the hydraulic sys-
tem. There is a similar law of the leakage for other hydraulic
components. For example, as the pressure of a hydraulic pump
increases from 1500 psi (10.5 MPa) to 3000 psi (21 MPa), the
volume of power loss increases from 0.735 to 2.94 kW.82 Next,
high pressure has generated new technical requirements for
hydraulic components, whose strength and seal performance
need to be enhanced for reliability.
4.2. High rotational speed
The future development of general aircraft systems is directed
towards highly integrated and power efficient systems,83 which
makes the electric motor pump (EMP) used more widely. Gen-
erally, the EMP, for example the pump used in the electro-
hydrostatic actuator (EHA)84 system, has a higher rotational
speed when compared with the general primary pump of air-
craft, engine driven pump (EDP). Table 2 shows the rated
speed and displacement of the pumps used in Boeing and Air-
bus civil aircrafts85. As it can be seen in the table, the speed of
the EMP has increased from less than 5000 r/min in early air-
crafts to approximately 8000 r/min in modern civil aircrafts,
and even more than 12000 r/min in some more electric
aircrafts. However, high-speed operating conditions will bring
several practical problems imposed on aircraft pumps, such as
pressure pulsation, cavitation, cylinder block tilt etc.,64–67,86
which are challenges to future pumps design.
4.3. Low pulsation
Flow ripple that superimposes upon the mean flow rate is an
inherent characteristic of a piston pump; its main frequency
component varies with the rotation speed of the pump. The
flow pulsations can be divided into two parts: kinematic flow
pulsations, which are created by the geometrically defined
motions of the limited number of pistons, and compressible
flow pulsations due to the limited stiffness of oil. These flow
pulsations interact with the connected pipeline system and
transform into pressure pulsations, which then spread
throughout the pipelines to other parts of the system. Pressure
pulsations and the accompanying vibrations are often the
sources of unreliability and fatigue of an aircraft hydraulic
power system. Some pipe crack cases occurred in early aircraft
due to the large pressure pulsation. Therefore, according to the
Hydraulic piston pump in civil aircraft: Current status, future directions and critical technologies 5

Table 2 Information of EDPs and EMPs used in Boeing and Airbus aircrafts.
Manufacturer and aircraft Entry into service Rated speed (r/min) Displacement (mL/rev)
EDP EMP EDP EMP
Boeing 707-120/320/420 1958 3750 5000 26.2 2.63
727-100/200/737-100/200 1964 3750 3200/4500 26.2 6.72/2.62
747-100/200/300 1970 3750 8000 39.3 7.87
757-200/300/767-200/300/400 1983 3750 6000 39.3 9.18
747-400 1989 3750 6000/8000 39.3 7.87/9.18
777-200/300 1995 3900 8000 49.12 6.23
787 Dreamliner 2011 5085 5085 19.66 19.66
Airbus A300B/A300-600 1974 3750 7200/7500 39.3 4.15/0.85
A310-200/300 1983 3750 7200/7500 39.3 4.15/0.85
A318/A319/A320/A321 1988 3720 7600 39.3 4.3
A330-200/300/A340-200/300 1993 3720 7600 49.2 4.3
A340-500/600 2002 4980 7600 49.2 4.3
A380-800 2007 3775 8000/8000/12000 47 5.73/1.0/1.0

SAE Aerospace standard,87 the procurement specification pro-
vided by the purchaser shall state the maximum permitted
amplitude of the discharge pressure pulsations. In general,
the amplitude of pressure pulsations shall not exceed 5% of
the rated pressure under any condition or a pressure band
specified by pump specifications. The pump pressure pulsation
can be as low as ±1% in some well-designed systems, for
instance the Airbus A380 hydraulic system, and as high as
±10% as allowed in older systems.2 Thus, it can be seen that
reducing the pressure pulsation is a permanent topic for the
aircraft piston pump.
4.4. High reliability and long service life
As an important part of the aircraft entire system, the hydrau-
lic system should have high reliability to ensure flight safety,
which also creates the demand for a long service life of the
pump. In general, the service life of civil aircraft is more than
60,000 hours.88 The engine driven pump (EDP), mounted
directly in the engine transmission case, is required to have
high reliability for the consideration of maintenance. The
EDP used in the traditional civil aircraft could serve for more
than 20,000 hours,89 but the modern civil aircraft has higher
requirements for the reliability of the pump. For instance,
the average life of the EDP on Airbus A380 is assured to be
35000 hours by the supplier.80 Thus, it can be concluded that
a long life is a future direction of the aircraft piston pump.
There are many factors that affect the reliability of the
pump, including wear of friction couples, oil cleanliness, oper-
ation conditions, poor suction capability, etc. For the pump
itself, the key to a long life is the design of friction couples
in high speed and high pressure conditions; the film character-
istics of the lubricating interfaces have heavy influence on the
reliability of the pump, and sometimes can even be decisive. In
addition, the other critical technologies, such as anti-
cavitation, pulsation reduction, and temperature management,
also contribute to the long-life piston pump, which will be pre-
sented in detail in Section 5.
4.5. Intelligence and energy saving
trol and utility systems. As mentioned above, the typical EDP
is a pressure compensated variable displacement axial piston
pump capable of delivering a variable volume of fluid to main-
tain the pressure in a hydraulic system. However, the constant
output pressure is set according to the maximum pressure dur-
ing maneuver flight, which accounts for only less than 10% of
the total flight time.81 This causes significant power loss, fur-
ther resulting in poor efficiency and temperature rise.
An intelligent hydraulic pump system (IHPS) is generally
defined as a kind of pump source systems whose output can
be easily controlled by virtue of an intelligent controller to
meet the requirements of an actual aircraft hydraulic system.
To realize feedback control of the output, necessary sensors
are installed on an IHPS, including pressure sensors, displace-
ment sensors, and temperature sensors. Based on the state
parameters of an IHPS and its actual operating condition,
the controller adjusts the displacement of the pump in accor-
dance with the pressure signal, and then achieves optimal
matching with the load. However, it will cause flow shortage
and rapid pressure drop when the IHPS responds sluggishly
and influences flight safety seriously. Moreover, the additional
parts on the pump could significantly reduce the reliability of
the whole system. As a result, the IHPS has never been applied
on civil hydraulic systems. Currently, the dual pressure aircraft
pump, equipped with an electrical depressurization valve, is
adopted as an alternative solution, due to its advantages of
high efficiency and energy saving.
5. Critical technologies
As discussed in Section 4, high pressure, high rotational speed,
low pulsation, highest reliability and long service life, intelli-
gence and energy saving are the main directions for future
pump designs. These future directions raise new problems or
make the pre-existing problems more outstanding. In order
to meet the requirements of future pumps, it is necessary to
improve the following critical technologies.
5.1. Design of friction couples in high speed and high pressure
conditions

Under normal conditions, the aircraft hydraulic system uses an The lubricating gaps of the friction couples in piston machines
EDP to supply the pressurized hydraulic fluid to the flight con- represent the main source of power loss. A deep understanding

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6 S. GUO et al.
of the complex physical phenomena characterizing the com-
plex fluid-structure interaction is crucial for improving the
existing designs and designing more efficient machines. The
three main lubricating gaps (see Fig. 4)27 in these machines
must fulfill the functions of sealing and bearing. Unlike other
tribological contacts, the gaps of axial piston machines fulfill
simultaneously bearing and sealing functions under extreme
oscillating loads, making the optimization of gap geometry
an extremely challenging task. Besides the main movement
(for example, axial movement and piston spin motion for the
piston), a micro movement is performed in the piston, slipper
and cylinder block, changing the film thickness and generating
an additional squeeze film effect. Recently, the problem of fric-
tion couples has become a hot topic due to its importance and
complexity.
Fig. 4 Lubricating interfaces in swash plate type axial piston
machines.27
Fig. 5 Piston/cylinder model coupled numerical domains (see Ref.
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(2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2019.01.013
Pelosi,28 Zecchi30 and Schenk31 investigated the fluid-
structure interaction modeling of the three primary sliding
interfaces in swash plate type axial piston machines. In their
dissertations, each lubricating interface model can capture
the complex fluid-structure interaction and thermal phenom-
ena affecting the non-isothermal fluid film conditions. In par-
ticular, the models consider the change in fluid film thickness
and squeeze film effect due to the component micro-motion
as well as the elastic deformations of solid boundaries. The
elastic deformation of the surfaces is related to the fluid film
pressure and thermal stresses. The models couple iteratively
different numerical domains and solution schemes, as depicted
in the case of piston/cylinder in Fig. 5. Different numerical
methods, discretization schemes and solvers are necessary in
order to solve different physical problems/domains. The com-
munication and coupling are allowed through advanced inter-
polation methods based on nearest neighbor searching.
The numerical model can be used to investigate better lubri-
cating interface designs, including novel material combina-
tions90,91 and micro-shaped surfaces.92 The researchers in
MAHA discovered that a micro metric sine waved piston
shape could reduce power loss generated in the piston/cylinder
assembly. Simulations have demonstrated the potential
decrease of overall power loss up to 50% at full displacement
and 65% at partial displacement at higher pressures, and even
up to 20% and 60% at full and partial displacements, respec-
tively, at lower pressures.93,94 These results represent a major
breakthrough in this research direction, suggesting that an
even deeper study of the possible new technologies will lead
to a new generation of pumps and motors.
To avoid the two hard surfaces running against each other,
RWTH Aachen University40,41 developed new physical vapor
deposition (PVD) coatings to coat the piston and slipper
(Fig. 6)95. For the pump mode, the pistons, which require
27
for related variables).
Hydraulic piston pump in civil aircraft: Current status, future directions and critical technologies
Fig. 6 PVD coated piston and coating structure.95
contoured bores, are cylindrical without contours. The PVD
coatings use a graded ‘‘Zirconium Carbide” (ZrCg) which fea-
tures increased carbon content over the coating thickness as
indicated in the lower part of the figure. As a consequence,
the hardness varies and decreases towards the top of the coat-
ing. The coating thickness is in the range of smaller double
digit lm, allowing a rather limited run in while the soft outer
layer is smoothened. Thus, it becomes possible to use tempered
steel as a counter body.
5.2. Noise reduction
It is widely accepted that the noise emitted from the piston
pump can be attributed to two main sources, namely, Fluid
Borne Noise Sources (FBNS) and Structure Borne Noise
Sources (SBNS). Both FBNS and SBNS are generated from
the pressure changes in displacement chambers. Currently,
the methods for pulsation reduction can be divided into two
Fig. 7 Typical slot geometries that are used within axial-piston pumps.46
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7
categories: optimizing the existing structure and installing the
attenuators.
Pressure pulsations and the accompanying vibrations are
often caused by the improper design of the valve plate; thus,
optimizing the structure of the valve plate is a hot topic for
reducing the pulsation. Manring46 investigated the principal
advantages of using various valve-plate slot geometries within
an axial piston pump, as shown in Fig. 7 (in the figure, r rep-
resents the piston pitch radius; d represents the depth of the
valve-plate slot; x represents the shaft angular speed; w repre-
sents the bottom length of the triangle slot; and uf represents
the angular length of the valve-plate slot). The results of this
study suggest that the use of quadratically varying slot geom-
etry is not effective since it offers no obvious performance
improvement.
Based on a comparison of the effectiveness of three valve
plates (Fig. 8), Seeniraj et al.96 found that among the passive
design methods, precompression grooves and precompression
filter volume (PCFV) were most effective in reducing noise
sources. The authors also explained the limitations of precom-
pression grooves and PCFV, and further proposed a new
design method which combines the precompression grooves,
PCFV and decompression filter volume (DCFV).
Xu et al.97 proposed a new design method for the transition
region of valve plate based on the matching of the flow area
and the reduction of transient reverse flow. The authors dis-
cussed the impact of the flow ripple in the discharge line of
an axial piston pump and the impact of the pressure overshoot
and undershoot in the piston chamber on the fluid borne noise.
The results showed that the new method could reduce the flow
ripple and eliminate the pressure overshoot and undershoot. In
2016, this research group continued the investigation of the
potential of flow ripple reduction using a combination of
cross-angle and pressure relief grooves.63 As shown in Fig. 9
(in this figure, c represents the cross angle of valve-plate; u
8 S. GUO et al.

Fig. 8 Three types of valve plates.95

Fig. 9 Valve plate designs and the simulation results of outlet flow rate.63

represents the timing; h represents the rotational angle of the
cylinder; and us1, ue1, us2, ue2 represent the starting and end-
ing locations of the valve plate inlet and outlet ports), the
authors chose proper matches between the cross-angle and
timing in order to guarantee that the precompression and
decompression angles for different cross-angles were the same
with those of the original design. The findings showed that the
flow ripples from the optimal solutions could be reduced by
using the cross-angle and pressure relief grooves, comparing
with the pumps using the cross-angle and ordinary precom-
pression and decompression angles.
Optimizing the structures other than valve plate could also
reduce noise and vibration, which has been demonstrated by
previous studies. In 2004, Manring and Dong98 pioneered
the analysis of the control and containment forces acting on
the swash plate. In their research, the dynamic characteristics
of the control and containment forces were calculated by
deriving instantaneous and average equations of the motion
for the swash plate. The results showed that using a secondary
swash plate angle could limit the magnitude of the required
control effort for the pump, and further reduced the flow rip-
ple in a large range of operating conditions. Recently, Kim and
Ivantysynova35,36 proposed the concept of swash plate active
vibration control with Two-Weight Notch Least Mean
Square/Filtered-x Least Mean Square (LMS/FxLMS) Filters.
The concept of AVC is the reduction of the swash plate vibra-
tion by means of creating a destructive interference force using
the swash plate control. As a pump rotates, the oscillating

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Hydraulic piston pump in civil aircraft: Current status, future directions and critical technologies 9

swash plate moment (MX) is converted to the oscillating force

(FSL) which is acting on the swash plate control actuator. The
active vibration control adjusts the high response servo valve
and generates a destructive interference force to the oscillating
force (FSL) as shown in Fig. 10 (in this figure, FSL represents
the self-adjusting force; FControl represents the control force;
SPAcc represents the acceleration of the swash plate; usv repre-
sents the control voltage of servo valve).
To date it is difficult to improve the noise reduction effect
only by optimizing the existing structures of the piston pump, Fig. 11 Compact hydraulic in-line silencer.
and more studies therefore have focused on developing new
pulsation attenuators for the aircraft piston pump. A novel
hydraulic silencer99,100 has been developed, employing an engi-
neered compliant material lining (see Fig. 11). The device has
fewer parts than current products, so it will be less costly to
manufacture, and its lining is maintenance-free. The device
has been shown to have performance acceptable to industry
in direct comparison to the available products. The material
has been used beyond the silencer, and is being considered
for compliance control in other devices. In 2013, Gao et al.69
developed a novel pulsation attenuator for the pressure-
controlled aircraft piston pump. The attenuator, as shown in
Fig. 12, can adjust itself to keep the attenuation effect when Fig. 12 Schematic of a pressure attenuator.
the pump parameters change within a certain range, and it is
also compact enough to be integrated into the pump. AP series EDP,6 manufactured by Parker Hannifin, is also
At present, the EDP with integrated attenuator (see Fig. 13) available to equip the attenuator as the optional features,
is wildly used in modern civil aircraft. For instance, Airbus adopted by a number of civil and military aircrafts from Air-
A380 installs eight PV3-300-31 piston pumps as the EDP, bus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Dassault, etc.
which are supplied by Eaton Vickers. This type of piston pump
has eleven pistons and an integrated spherical attenuator with 5.3. Inlet booster impeller
the consideration of pressure pulsation reduction. It is verified
that the amplitude of pressure fluctuation is only ±1%; thus, Compared with common industrial pumps, the EDP and EMP
this pump is regarded as the quietest pump on the market. The in modern aircrafts are more likely to suffer from cavitation

Fig. 10 Concept of swash plate AVC.

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10
Fig. 13 EDPs with integrated attenuators.
damage than those in other engineering applications since
they work at extremely high rotation speed (eg., more than
10000 r/min).84–86,101 Further, the requirements of size and
weight for airborne components limit greatly the diameter of
the inlet pipe, and the distance between the tank and the pump
inevitably elongates the pipe. Therefore, it is necessary to boost
the inlet pressure in order to feed the suction chamber with suf-
ficient fluid flow. In practice, there are three types of solutions
to deal with the problem: (1) pressurizing the tank,81,102 (2)
boosting the inlet pressure with volumetric pump,103 and (3)
boosting the inlet pressure with the centrifugal impeller.4,6
Currently, the bootstrap type and pressurized gas type
reservoirs are widely used in civil and military aircraft. How-
ever, the cavitation phenomenon still exists if pressurizing
the tank is solely adopted, because the pressure loss before
the pump significantly limits the pressurization effect especially
in large flow conditions. In small flow conditions, most outlet
flow of the volumetric type booster could enter the return cir-
cuit, so that the induced rise in the weight of the return circuit
is a great burden for aviation equipment. Comparatively, a
small size impeller can easily permit the pump to operate at
inlet pressure well below atmospheric pressure, according to
an experimental research carried out by Chen.104 Unfortu-
nately, until now, little literature has described how to design
and develop the inlet boost impeller for the aircraft piston
pump.
As mentioned in Section 2, the most common aircraft pis-
ton pump is the variable displacement pressure compensated
type, so the output flow changes from zero to maximum. In
order to avoid insufficient suction, the flow from the boost
impeller must meet the requirements for the maximum flow.
On the other hand, the impeller is directly mounted on the
main shaft, meaning that it has the same rotation speed with
the cylinder block. As a result, it is unable to match the flow
requirement by changing the speed of the impeller. Further-
more, the water hammer caused by abrupt velocity change of
fluid flow is inevitable and sometime harmful to the impeller
blades. Therefore, the issues discussed above must be taken
into account during the design of inlet boost impeller.
5.4. Thermal management
The tendency of the hydraulic system in civil aircraft is higher
pressure and higher power. The higher pressure means greater
power loss, and the aircraft pump is belong to the compact
design aviation equipment, resulting in poor heat dissipation
and rapid temperature increase. An increase in temperature
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(2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2019.01.013
S. GUO et al.
reduces the service life of the fluid and seals. A predictable
increase in aircraft hydraulic system pressure from 3000 psi
(21 MPa) to 8000 psi (56 MPa) will cause a temperature rise
from 110 to 180 °C.81 The statistic data indicates that the aver-
age stable life will reduce by 90% if the oil temperature
increases by 15 °C.81 Additionally, an increase in oil tempera-
ture aggravates the sediment accumulation, reduces the lubri-
cation property, and can result in the function loss of the
whole fluid power system. Furthermore, future aircraft, espe-
cially the military one, will increasingly use composite materi-
als that are characterized by poor heat-transfer capability
considering the reduction of the radar cross section (RCS).
During the supersonic flight, an increase in aircraft surface
temperature will further increase the hydraulic system temper-
ature. Hence, it is necessary to find solutions to keep the sys-
tem temperature at the appropriate level.
At present, several methods have been attempted to solve
the heating problem of the piston pump. Power loss originates
from the lubricating gaps between the friction couples, which
has great influence on the temperature rise of the piston pump.
Therefore, the proper design of the friction couples is advanta-
geous to effective management of the heating problem. A
detailed description of this issue can be referred to in
Section 5.1. Guo and Yin105 comprehensively summarized
the static and dynamic calculation methods of the temperature
in aircraft hydraulic systems, and further proposed thermal
management strategies. Parker Hannifin has developed a
remarkable technique of forced heat dissipation to be applied
on the EDPs.6 A gerotor is used inside the pump to accelerate
the case drain flow, decreases the operating temperature of the
rotating group, and minimizes the pressure loads on the rotat-
ing group components. However, the rule of matching the suc-
tion pump with the piston pump needs to be further
investigated to avoid cavitation or over pressure in the case.
In some rare cases, however, the temperature need to be
maintained at a high level. The air driven pump (ADP), also
named ram air turbine (RAT) pump, generates power for flight
control in an emergency. The RAT pump can start rapidly in
cold environment, attributing to an orifice for heating the
hydraulic liquid. Wang et al.106 proposed a calculation method
for the size of the temperature control orifice based on the
thermal equilibrium.
5.5. Fault diagnosis and health management
Efficient diagnosis of the aircraft fluid power system is one of
the key techniques in the prognostic and health management
(PHM) system. Generally, there are three or four redundant
hydraulic power systems in aerial designs to ensure flight secu-
rity. As a crucial component in the hydraulic system, the EDP
must be sufficiently reliable during the flight. However, the
EDP consists of many precision parts which work in high-
speed and high-pressure conditions, so faults occur easily.
Therefore, monitoring the status and predicting the faults of
the EDP in real-time becomes particularly important. As
shown in Fig. 14, the PHM system should contain the following
functions: state monitoring via signal acquisition, fault diagno-
sis and prediction, and evaluation mechanism of PHM. Due to
the PHM system, the fault in the EDP can be located quickly
and accurately; thus, the on-condition maintenance is realized
in order to reduce the total maintenance cost and time.
Hydraulic piston pump in civil aircraft: Current status, future directions and critical technologies
Fig. 14
To obtain the health state and fault features of the EDP,
the essential sensors should be installed in the hydraulic sys-
tem. PHM collects information from these sensors and extracts
fault features from characteristic parameters. However, the
information always contains many different interference sig-
nals, so it is necessary to adopt a method to extract the fault
features effectively, eliminate the disturbance, and highlight
the failure features. The common approaches used in the
PHM system for feature extraction include wavelet analysis,107
cepstrum envelope analysis,108 empirical mode decomposi-
tion,109 and the chaos-based weak signal extraction.110 The
most significant difference between a PHM and traditional
fault diagnosis lies in the prognostic function. PHM can use
the prior fault knowledge and the current state to predict the
variation trend of parameters or performance, and obtain
the residual life quickly and accurately. With the effective fault
prediction, PHM can guide the repair decision effectively
before faults occur, and stop the fault development. Hence
the fault prediction can prevent the catastrophic failure after
mastering the performance degradation. In PHM evaluation,
the reliability, safety, maintainability, failure coverage rate,
and alarm rate should be comprehensively considered.
5.6. High-parameter mechanical seal
The mechanical seal is widely used as the shaft seal in high-
speed rotating machinery such as pumps, turbines and
compressors. The main role of the mechanical face seal is to
prevent leakage inside instruments because any problem in this
Fig. 15 The shaft seal used in Eaton Vickers pumps.4
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11
Structure of PHM system.
element can cause significant economic loss and casualties. As
for the aircraft piston pump, the mechanical seal does not
belong to the frontier technologies, but it is significant for
the reliability of the pump. The expected life of the mechanical
seal should be up to tens of thousands of hours even though it
works with high parameters, including the high rotation
speed4 (the recommended maximum speed is up to 22500 r/
min) and wide temperature range (from 55 °C to 200 °C).
Moreover, the seal often suffers from severe vibration impact,
which is harmful to the performance of the seal. It is generally
accepted that wear is the main form which disables the func-
tion of the mechanical seal. There are many causes leading
to the wear such as load, geometry shape, processing tech-
nique, and materials, and these factors provide ways to
improve the friction behavior of the mating elements. Eaton
Vickers has developed a shaft seal configuration especially
designed for use in aerospace pumps.4 This face type shaft seal
(Fig. 15) is not a ‘‘package” design, but a combination of sim-
ple elements made of high quality materials such as bearing
grade bronze or carbon. The major difference from other seals
is that the sealing element rotates with the shaft while the
heavier mating ring is stationary in the housing. The seal
assembly is driven by two tabs on the retainer that engages
with the pump drive shaft. Static sealing around the circumfer-
ence of the drive shaft is accomplished with the elastomeric
grommet, as shown in Fig. 15 (b), which is held in contact with
the shaft by a garter spring. Dynamic sealing is affected by
forcing the rotating element against the stationary mating
ring.
12 S. GUO et al.

mechanical engineering, electronics, fluid mechanics, material

technology, control theory, etc.. This review attempts to cover
all these areas by introducing the achievements from some
active research institutes. Furthermore, the details of some
critical technologies have been presented, providing significant
insight into related investigations in the future.
High pressure, high rotational speed, low pulsation, highest
reliability and long service life, intelligence and energy saving
are the future directions of the aircraft piston pump, which
lead to many challenges to the pump design. Some of the chal-
lenges, such as the design of the key friction couples and noise
reduction, have attracted increasing attention and achieved
some breakthroughs; however, little research has been con-
ducted on the other challenges, such as the inlet boost tech-
nique, and forced heat dissipation. In addition, according to
Fig. 16 Mechanical seal with circular notches.111
the concept of intelligent manufacturing presented in Industry
4.0, ‘being smart’ is a core element in future industry. There-
fore, the integration of sensors, controls and embedded soft-
ware is another challenge for future pump designs and a
huge opportunity for fluid power technology.

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural

Science Foundation of China (No. 51775013) and the Aero-
nautical Science Foundation of China (No. 2016ZC09007).

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