Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676

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Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ymssp

On the lubrication performance of external gear pumps

for aerospace fuel delivery applications
Divya Thiagarajan a,⇑,1, Andrea Vacca a, Stephanie Watkins b
a
Maha Fluid Power Research Center, Purdue University, Lafayette, IN, USA
b
Rolls-Royce plc, Birmingham, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: External gear pumps (EGPs) are one of the most common choices in aerospace engines as a
Received 10 November 2018 fuel delivery pump. These units usually include a pressure compensation system that
Received in revised form 7 February 2019 defines the lubricating gap at the lateral side of the gears. This lubricating interface is a crit-
Accepted 15 April 2019
ical design aspect, which strongly affects the reliability as well as the mechanical and vol-
umetric efficiencies of the pump. Major challenges in designing these lubricating gaps in
aero engine fuel pumps, include high operating speeds, delivery pressures and low viscos-
Keywords:
ity of the working fluids. Virtual prototyping methods present a fast and efficient design
Gear pumps
Fuel delivery pumps
tool and have the potential to improve the EGP’s reliability and efficiency. This paper pre-
Lubrication sents a study on the pressure compensation system of a fuel delivery EGP and shows how
EHD the presence of frictional forces opposing the motion of the compensating element signif-
Aero engines icantly affect the lubricating performance of the unit. The presence of these frictional forces
produces an effect of hysteresis on the axial balance system, so that the lubricating gaps
that develop within the pump at a certain operating condition depend on the previous
operating state. This effect was captured in an experimental setup purposely developed
for this study at Rolls-Royce. Within this work, this behavior was also reproduced numer-
ically, through a coupled fluid structure interaction – elastohydrodynamic (EHD) model
that includes the modeling of these frictional forces. After detailing the implementation
of the lateral gap model, this paper presents measurements from carefully conducted
experiments which correlate with the simulated predictions of the influence of frictional
forces on the performance of a reference EGP design under study.
Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The use of high pressure external gear pumps (EGPs) is a popular choice in many applications across automotive, aero-
space, agricultural, construction and fluid handling industries. Their advantages of compactness, robustness and high toler-
ances to fluid contamination and cavitation are especially useful in aerospace applications where packaging and reliability in
designs are highly preferred. A commercially available fuel delivery pump is used as a reference case in this paper. Table 1
lists the main features of this pump, while an exploded view of its design can be found in Fig. 1A.

⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: divya1190@gmail.com (D. Thiagarajan), avacca@purdue.edu (A. Vacca), stephanie.watkins@rolls-royce.com (S. Watkins).
1
Present address: Gamma Technologies, Westmont, IL, USA.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2019.04.030
0888-3270/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
660 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676

Nomenclature

Symbols
ar Real contact area, m2
anom Nominal area, m2
D pipe diameter, m
d Wheelbase of the pump, m
h Film thickness, m
H Material Hardness
2Hk
H
Y Non- dimensional hardness parameter =pE
ry
pc
Pc Non-dimensional contact pressure =C p
p Pressure, Pa
q Density, kg/m3
O Order of magnitude
l Dynamic viscosity of working fluid, Pa-s
lf Static Friction Coefficient
k; n Lame’s coefficients
F Force, N
R Outer radius of gears, m
Rq RMS surface roughness, m
u Displacement Vector, m
v Velocity, m/s
X Cartesian X coordinate
Y Cartesian Y coordinate
/x ; /c ; /s Stochastic flow factors

Subscripts
x,y coordinate system
t Top surface
b Bottom surface
c Contact
Dr Driver gear
Dn Driven gear
In Inlet
Out Outlet
UD Undeformed
Flt Floating bearing
ref Reference
Sld Solid bearing

Abbreviations
HP High Pressure
LP Low Pressure
EGP External Gear Pump
FSI Fluid Structure Interaction
FVM Finite Volume Method
FEM Finite Element Method
ISO International Standards Organization
OC Operating Condition

Low viscosity of the working fluid (Jet A) along with high working speeds become critical factors which affect the lubri-
cating performance of these machines, especially in sealing against leakages. The main interfaces in these pumps responsible
for the leakage paths are highlighted in Fig. 1B, which shows the radial gap between the gears and the housing, and the lat-
eral gaps on the lateral surface of the gears. Sealing radial leakages is normally achieved through the radial micro-motion of
the gears: under the action of the outlet port pressure, the gears supported by journal bearings cut into the housing wall and
reduce the distance between the sealing tip lands and the housing. This aspect of radial sealing, along with proper modeling
techniques suitable for EGPs for high pressure applications was described by Vacca et al. [1,2].
With respect to addressing the lateral leakages, the use of pressure compensated floating elements at the gears lateral
side has proven to be an effective way to achieve high energy efficiency for high pressure EGPs. In EGPs for fluid power appli-
cations, it is common to have symmetrical arrangements that utilizes two floating elements at both lateral sides of the gear
 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676 661

Fig. 1. (A) Exploded view of the reference fuel delivery pump (B) Figure indicating the two primary leakage paths in the reference EGP.

Table 1
Specifications of the reference gear pump used in the present analysis.

Parameter Number of gear Outer Diameter of Length of the gears Displacement Working Maximum Maximum speed
teeth Gears (R=lref ) (l=lref )) (cc/rev) fluid pressure (bar) (rpm)

Value 14 0.72 0.23 43 Jet A 175 8000

set. These floating elements are pressure compensated which implies that they are subject to the action of the outlet port
pressure in opposition to the effect of the pressure within the lateral gap, that would move the floating elements away from
the gears. Different designs of floating elements are available in commercial EGPs, which include lateral pressure plates and
in instances when they also integrate the journal bearings supporting the gears, they are referred to as lateral bushings.
Examples of these designs can be found in the studies performed by the authors’ team [2,3]. The gap compensation system
of the reference pump falls instead within the category of asymmetrically balanced designs, which are quite common in
aerospace applications, such as fuel pumps and landing gear pumps [4]. The gap compensation system is shown in Fig. 2,
which also highlights the two lubricating interfaces present between the lateral bearings and either side of the gears. The
lateral bearing indicated as floating bearing is responsible for providing the axial pressure compensation at different oper-
ating conditions while the net forces in the EGP push the other bearing (indicated as solid bearing) towards the end of the
casing. This is because the rear side of the solid bearing has low pressure fluid which results in pressing this rear side of the
bearing against the covers of the EGP. On the other hand, the back side of the floating bearing has the HP and the LP areas
separated by an O ring seal. Consequently, the floating bearing is the only axial balancing element in the reference design,
which leads to an asymmetrically balanced system. More details on the forces acting on the floating bearing will be provided

Fig. 2. Representation of the lateral lubricating interfaces between the gears and bearings in the reference EGP.
662 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676

in the Section 2.4 of this paper. The two lateral lubricating interfaces between the gears and the respective lateral bearings in
such a system, are hereby designated as floating/gears and solid/gears interface as indicated in Fig. 2.
For all possible variants of the axial compensation systems (either symmetric or asymmetric), it is desirable to have low
gap heights in the lateral gaps between the gears and bearings to prevent leakages from the high pressure (HP) to the low
pressure (LP) port. On the other hand, the film thicknesses in these interfaces also need to be reasonably high enough to pre-
vent wear and deterioration of the thrust faces on the bearings. Thus, the axial balance design in any pressure compensated
EGP needs to satisfy opposing aims to achieve efficient and reliable operation of the unit. Typically, designers in the industry
use simplified models and rely on iterative design and test methods to achieve a reliable EGP design inclusive of the axial gap
compensation. Fully virtual prototyping using sophisticated numerical techniques to model different physical phenomena
can considerably reduce the cost, time and efforts in pump design.
Several studies analyzing the behavior of lateral lubricating gaps in EGPs with varying levels of complexity have been
published in the recent years. Early experimental studies along with preliminary numerical modelling were performed by
Koç et al. [5,6]; Borghi et al. [7] presented a first approach for modelling the lubricating interfaces, though without describing
the motion of the lateral floating elements. The author’s team at Purdue University proposed several studies based on the
modelling of the lubricating gap flow considering both thermal and elastic deformation of the components as well as the
motion of the floating elements (Dhar and Vacca [3,8]). These last works, that also included experimental validation, were
based on symmetric configurations of the axial balance system and considered EGPs for fluid power applications using min-
eral based oil as working fluid. This model, referred by the authors as HYGESim (HYdraulic GEar machines Simulator) was
also extended to permit the study of an EGP asymmetric design unit for an aerospace landing gear system [9]. The model was
successfully used to design a solution based on wedge gears able to reduce the shear losses associated with the lateral gap, to
increase the torque efficiency of the EGP (Thiagarajan et al. [10]). Recently, the model was also extended to account for the
mixed lubrication effects (Thiagarajan and Vacca [9]); in this work the authors showed the relevance of the effects of differ-
ent bearing surface roughness features on the behavior of the lubricating gap film and also validated these findings with the
help of leakage measurements.
Modelling of the lubricating interfaces in gear pumps used for fuel delivery was first substantially achieved in the work of
Morgridge et al. [11] where a simplified single tooth EHD model of the lateral gap was used to analyze various effects of sur-
face profiling and roughness features. However, this work did not include the complex rotating geometries coupled with
elastic deformation and hydrodynamic effects involving micro-motion of the gears and the lateral bearing, which were found
to significantly affect the performance of the lubricating gaps in the earlier works by the authors as mentioned above.
Most of the studies performed by the authors’ team with their HYGESim tool involved compensated EGPs with thin lateral
pressure plates. When it comes to EGPs with bearing blocks, the floating elements are also subject to a frictional force that
opposes their motion. For the reference EGP, this frictional force arises from the lateral bearing’s contact with the housing of
the EGP as indicated in Fig. 3. This frictional force influences the movement of the floating bearing which consequently
affects the lubrication performance of the unit. This friction force is related to the outlet pressure acting on the top side
of the bushing, as well as the pressure that develops within the journal bearings, that supports the gear shafts. To the best
of the authors’ knowledge, the effect of such frictional forces on the axial balance mechanism of a pressure compensated EGP
has never been reported in literature.

Fig. 3. Illustration of the location of frictional contact (highlighted in black) between the floating bearing and the housing along with the different radial
forces which contribute to the total frictional force.
 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676 663

Fig. 4. Qualitative representation of the ‘‘hysteresis” phenomenon of the floating bearing position experienced during the experimental measurements.

With the goal of studying the effect of such frictional forces, the team at the Maha Fluid Power Research Center of Purdue
University (USA) collaborated with Rolls-Royce (Control Systems, Birmingham, UK) to set up proper experiments and formu-
late modeling techniques suitable to describe the experimental observations. The experimental setup (detailed later in Sec-
tion 3) was designed to measure the axial position of the floating bearing. To prove the relevance of frictional effects on the
overall behavior of the axial compensation system, experiments were conducted by successively varying the outlet pressures
in consistent steps at a constant operating speed, while starting at the lowest outlet pressure and increasing to the highest
pressure and tracing the same experimental path again from the highest to the lowest outlet pressure. The expected qual-
itative trend of the results should look like Fig. 4: that shows a hysteresis behavior of the floating bearing position with
respect to cyclic variations of the outlet pressure. The frictional forces acting on the floating bearing are strongly dependent
on the starting position of the bearing at each operating condition, since the friction is dominant enough to influence and
restrict the motion of the bearing. Thus, different starting positions due to different preceding pressures lead to varying
resulting positions of the floating bearing.
Besides the experimental activity performed to prove the explained behavior, this paper also proposes a numerical sim-
ulation approach, implemented in the authors’ HYGESim, to consider the frictional contact of the bearing with the housing in
an integrated manner with the FSI lateral gap model. Predictions from the simulation model are then compared with exper-
imental measurements of the floating bearing position, which also confirms the substantial effect of friction on the perfor-
mance of the reference EGP under study. After detailing the experimental set up and the effects of the FSI gap model with the
frictional effects, the article also describes the validation of the modelling approach against the experimental results and
shows how the proposed model can be used to gain further understanding on the behavior of the axial compensation mech-
anisms for units that uses floating bearing blocks to realize the axial compensation.

2. Modelling approach

The numerical modeling to study the effect of frictional forces on the axial balance system is one of the chief contributions
of this work. These models were built on the former version of the authors’ HYGESim tool, which did not account for these
frictional forces. For the sake of completeness, a brief description of these numerical tools is presented in this section while
modeling aspects related to these frictional forces are explained in a more detailed manner.
The overall structure of the HYGESim tool is provided in Fig. 5. It includes different submodels for an omni-
comprehensive simulation of an EGP. A lumped parameter model for the simulation of the displacing action of the EGP is
central to the simulation tool. The approach is based on a proper control volume definition for the displacement chambers
(the tooth space volumes, TSVs) along with the modeling of the internal connections through orifice equations, with details
provided in Vacca and Guidetti [12]. The basic definition of the control volume was recently formalized in Zhao and Vacca
[13] and the sub-model used to calculate the radial forces acting on the gears and their radial micro-motions considering the
behavior of the journal bearing interfaces was covered in Pellegri and Vacca [2]. The internal pressures calculated by these
sub-models were also used in an acoustic module for the estimation of the airborne noise emissions in Woo et al. [14]. How-
ever, this noise model is not relevant to the current research.
The axial gap module of HYGESim is of special interest for evaluating the performance of the lateral gap. The axial gap
module was developed in C++ using open source libraries like OpenFOAM [15] and GSL [16]. This module interfaces with
the fluid-dynamic module by exchanging pressure and leakage information iteratively using a co-simulation approach as
published earlier in Vacca et al. [17]. The resulting TSV pressures computed by considering the actual geometry of the gears,
664 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676

Fig. 5. Overview of the different sub-models in HYGESim.

porting grooves and radial micro-motion in the fluid dynamic module, are used to set the boundary conditions for the lateral
gap sub-model. The radial forces acting on the gears which are balanced by the journal bearing interfaces are evaluated from
the loading module and subsequently used in the gap model for determining the resultant frictional forces on the floating
bearing.
Fig. 6 shows the various preprocessors and solvers that are integrated within the FSI lateral gap model. The primary goals
of the gap model are to predict the pressures, film thicknesses and the resulting losses due to viscous friction and leakages in
the lubricating interface, which requires the use of the various solvers depicted in Fig. 6. Due to the presence of high pres-
sures, structural deformation of the lateral bearings and gears needs to be considered, thus contributing to an elastohydro-
dynamic (EHD) lubrication regime, with the help of the structural solver. Force and moment equilibrium are solved in the
force balance solver which determines the rigid body micro-motion of the lateral bearings and the gear. Both these solvers
are coupled to the main fluid flow solver which solves for the pressure distribution in the gap. Thus, the preprocessing steps
(as shown in Fig. 6) for setting up these solvers involves generating FVM based dynamic fluid meshes (120000 elements)
for each angular rotation and meshes for all the solid components (150000 elements) along with the appropriate boundary
conditions from the HYGESim fluid dynamic model. The details of the implementation of these sub-models are briefly
explained in the current section, focusing chiefly on the considerations of the frictional force between the floating bearing
and the casing, while a more meticulous discussion of the gap model can be found in the past published works of the authors.
In particular, the details related to the implementation of the preprocessing modules along with the force balance and fluid
flow solvers can be found in Dhar and Vacca [8], while the work of Thiagarajan et al. [4] presents the model for asymmet-

Fig. 6. Schematic representation of the preprocessors and solvers comprising the FSI lateral gap model.
 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676 665

rically balanced gear pumps. Detailed description related to the aspects of mixed lubrication modeling can be found in Thi-
agarajan and Vacca [9].

2.1. Fluid flow solver

Since the reference design is an asymmetrically balanced system, both the lubricating interfaces (floating/gears and solid/
gears) need to be simulated separately as explained in the introduction section. Furthermore, since only the floating bearing
can move, and the solid bearing is essentially pressed against the casing in the reference pump design, there are instanta-
neously different pressure fields in the corresponding lubricating interfaces which result in different lateral forces on either
side of the gears. Thus, both the driver and the driven gears are free to move axially along with the floating bearing. There-
fore, to determine the positions of the floating bearing, driver and the driven gears, an un-deformed reference plane is
defined using three points for each of the components as shown in Fig. 7. Using this definition of the position of these points,
the film thicknesses can be defined for the floating/gears and solid/gears interface as follows,


ht;Flt;UD  hb;Dr;UD : floating=driv erinterface
hFlt;UD ¼ ð1Þ
ht;Flt;UD  hb;Dn;UD : floating=driv eninterface

2hTFlt;2  hTFlt;1  hTFlt;0 hTFlt;1  hTFlt;0 hTFlt;0  hTFlt;1

ht;Flt;UD ðx; yÞ ¼ x þy þ ð2Þ
2ðd þ RÞ 2R 2

2hTDr;2  hTDr;1  hTDr;0 hTDr;1  hTDr;0 hTDr;0  hTDr;1

hb;Dr;UD ðx; yÞ ¼ x þy þ ð3Þ
2ðRÞ 2R 2

2hTDn;2  hTDn;1  hTDn;0 hTDn;1  hTDn;0 hTDn;0  hTDn;1

hb;Dn;UD ðx; yÞ ¼ ðx  dÞ þy þ ð4Þ
2ðRÞ 2R 2
Equations for the solid/gears interface can be derived in manner similar to Eqs. (1)–(4) and further details of this deriva-
tion can be found in [4]. The film thickness information is then used to solve for the pressure distribution in the lubricating
interfaces using the following forms of the average flow Reynolds equations [18],
! !  
qhFlt
3
qv   @hFlt;t @hFlt;b v Flt;b @/Flt;s
r: /Flt;x rpFlt þ /Flt;c Flt;b :rhFlt þ /Flt;c qv Flt;b :r hFlt;b þ q/Flt;c  þ qRq ¼0
12l 2 @t @t 2 @x
ð5Þ
! !  
qhFlt
3
qv   @hFlt;t @hFlt;b v Flt;b @/Flt;s
r: /Flt;x rpFlt þ /Flt;c Flt;b :rhFlt þ /Flt;c qv Flt;b :r hFlt;b þ q/Flt;c  þ qRq ¼0
12l 2 @t @t 2 @x
ð6Þ

Fig. 7. The points on the floating bearing, driver and driven gear geometries used to calculate the un-deformed film thickness.
666 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676

In this equation, /x represents the pressure flow factor, /c is the contact factor and /s indicates the shear factor which
were introduced in the works of [19–21] to model the influence of surface features on the lubricant flow through the
gap. A Gaussian distribution of asperity heights has been assumed for both the gears and lateral bushings in the gap. Thus,
the relationships for the various flow factors to evaluate the gap pressure with non-dimensional film thickness (h=Rq Þ have
been obtained from the works of [19].
Discretization for the above equations were done using FVM and a pre-conditioned conjugate gradient solver was used to
obtain the pressure solution. The computational domain of the fluid mesh needs the removal of the porting grooves, as
depicted in Fig. 6 to facilitate the validity of Reynolds equation and this leads to a dynamically changing mesh that updates
every angular rotation.

2.2. Structural solver

The elastic deformation of the solid components, namely the floating bearing, solid bearing, driver and driven gears are
fully coupled with the pressures in the lubricating gap as computed by the Reynolds equation to account for the EHD lubri-
cation regime. A FVM based elasticity solver as developed by [22] shown in Eq. (7) with the help of a geometric multi-grid
solver was used to compute the solid deformation.

r:½ð2n þ kÞru þ r:½nðruÞT þ kItrðruÞ  ½ðn þ kÞru ¼ qf ð7Þ

To increase the computational efficiency, an influence matrix approach was used to compute the deformation of the solid
components in an offline manner and further details of this approach can be found in [4].

2.3. Asperity contact solver

In order to evaluate the effects of the asperity interactions on the lubrication performance, a rough surface contact model
proposed by the work of [23] is used in the present research. The non-dimensional relationship between the gap compliance
and the contact pressure from the asperities as obtained from [23] is defined with the help of a following fourth order poly-

nomial for both the floating/gears and solid/gears interfaces in terms of the non-dimensional contact pressure (P c Þ which is
also related to the material properties in the following equations,
!
hFlt;T X4
! ! i
¼ exp ð cG ½Gi  HY ÞPFlt;c when PFlt;c < HY ð8Þ
Rq i¼0

!
hSld;T X4
! ! i i
¼ exp ð cG ½Gi  HY ÞP Sld;c when PSld;c < HY ð9Þ
Rq i¼0

!T ! !
cG and HTY are the parametric matrices which are defined empirically by [23] as cG T ¼ ½1; c1 ; c2 ; c3  and
!
HTY ¼ ½1; H1 2 3
Y ; H Y ; HY . The real contact area (ar ) of the surface asperities to support the loads in the lateral gap is computed
from the contact pressure with the help of the following non-dimensional relationships,
!
aFlt;r X
4
!T ! i i
¼ ð cA ½Ai  HY ÞP Flt;c when PFlt;c < HY ð10Þ
anom i¼0

!
aSld;r X
4
!T ! i
¼ ð cA ½Ai  HY ÞPSld;c when PSld;c < HY ð11Þ
anom i¼0

where anom is the nominal area under full film conditions and the parametric matrix for the contact area calculations can be
!
evaluated as cA T ¼ ½1; c1 ; c2 ; c3 . The values of the parametric matrices used in this research are obtained from the work of
[23].
The contact pressures and the real contact area evaluated from the asperity contact sub-model contribute to the contact
forces, which is consequently evaluated only at those faces where the contact condition imposed on the model is attained. In
the force balance solver described in Section 2.4, these contact forces arising from asperities are integrated in the overall
force balance solver and thus, the influence of the surface asperities on the lubricating load support are comprehensively
considered in the FSI lateral gap model.

2.4. Force balance solver

The asymmetric EGM has three floating elements whose position during operation of the EGM depends on the balance of
hydrostatic forces acting on them. The first of these is the floating bearing which has a HP balance area (as shown in Fig. 8A)
where delivery pressure acts, thereby creating a force pushing it toward the gears. Opposing this force are the pressures in
 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676 667

Fig. 8. (A) Force contribution from the HP balance area (highlighted in red) on the floating bearing (B) Force contribution from the pressures in the lateral
gap and the TSVs. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

the tooth spaces, and from the lateral gap acting on the floating bearing which is cumulatively illustrated in Fig. 8B. Addi-
tionally, in the present EGM design, compressed springs are present on the rear side of the floating bearing, which push the
bearing towards the gears.
The point of application of each spring force is assumed at the geometric center of its corresponding spring slot in the
floating bearing which is obtained directly from the CAD file of the bearing. It must be noted here that in the force evaluation
from the springs, it has been assumed that the springs are under constant compression (lc ) throughout the operation of the
EGM and do not vary with varying gap heights in the floating/gears interface. The cumulative magnitude and the point of
application of these spring forces on the total force balance system are determined with the help of the following equations,
XnSprings
F spring ¼ i¼1
F is ð12Þ

XnSprings F is X i
X spring ¼ ð13Þ
i¼1 F spring

XnSprings F is Y i
Y spring ¼ ð14Þ
i¼1 F spring
The radial forces acting on the floating bearing contribute to a frictional force which restricts its movement as shown in
Fig. 9. These radial forces comprise of the fluid pressure forces acting on the LP area at the outside diameter of the bearing
(bottom of the illustration in Fig. 9) and the radial forces from the journal bearing interface between the shaft and the bear-
ing. It is important to account for this frictional force as a variation with operating conditions as well as micro-motion veloc-
ities in the force balance model. This model has been implemented and coupled with the other sub-models of the gap model
in this work.

Fig. 9. Illustration of the different radial forces acting on the floating bearing and their resulting frictional force at the contact with pump housing.
668 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676

The Stribeck curve as modelled in [24] has been used to account for the variation of translational friction force with veloc-
ities of the floating bearing. The analytical expression for the Stribeck curve has been represented graphically in Fig. 10 along
with the various parameters used in the model. The most significant parameters used in this model are highlighted in this
figure where various parts of the curve are separated as Stribeck, Coulomb and viscous friction respectively. The physical
phenomena of a rigid body overcoming static friction and moving to a dynamic friction range at higher velocities are cap-
tured by the different sections of the model, as represented in the equation below, between frictional force F and the rigid
body velocity v which in this case corresponds to the velocity of the floating bearing,

 2 !  
pffiffiffiffiffiffi v v v
F¼ 2eðF brk  F c Þ: exp  : þ F : tanh þ fv ð15Þ
v St v St c v Coul
F C in the above equation corresponds to the Coulomb frictional force which considers the static frictional force experi-
enced by the body and is represented with the help of the following equation,

F c ¼ sgnðv Þ
lf ððpHP  pLP Þ
AreaLP þ F Rd þ F Rs Þ ð16Þ

In Eq. (16), the forces F Rd and F Rs are radial forces from the journal bearing as computed directly from the fluid dynamic
module of HYGESim for each operating condition used for the simulations. pHP and pLP are high and low pressures respec-
tively which depend on the operating condition used in the simulation, while AreaLP is the area of solid contact between
the floating bearing and the casing typically corresponding the region of the floating bearing outside diameter exposed to
the low pressure fluid.
Table 2 lists the remaining parameters used in the frictional force model and the details of their implementation. It must
be noted here that the values of lf and v brk are the only assumptions in the model and these values are reported in the results
sections along with the corresponding simulations.
Due to the asymmetry in the geometry of the EGM, the pressures in the lubricating interfaces on either side of each gear
are instantaneously not symmetric and therefore the position of the gears also depends on the force balance achieved due to
the pressures on either interface. To solve for simultaneous force balance on all the floating elements, the conditions of static
equilibrium (F Res ; M x ; M y ¼ 0) are solved for each of them. This leads to a 9-dimensional root finding solver with the roots
being the squeeze velocities for the each of the solids at the three points shown earlier in Fig. 7.
It must be noted here that for evaluating the friction forces, the floating bearing is modelled in a simplified manner where
it can have only one degree of freedom of motion along the axial direction to and away from the gears. The velocity at the

Fig. 10. Representation of a Stribeck curve with different parameters for variation of frictional force with velocities.

Table 2
Description of various parameters used in the Stribeck curve model.

Parameters Description
F Friction Force
FC Coulomb friction
F brk ¼ 2:5
F C Breakaway friction
v brk p
Breakaway friction velocity
v St ¼ v brk 2 Stribeck velocity threshold
v Coul ¼ v10 brk Coulomb velocity threshold
v Relative velocity
f Viscous friction coefficient
lf Static friction coefficient
 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676 669

location defined by T Flt;0 (shown earlier in Fig. 7) is used in Eq. (15) to evaluate the corresponding variation in frictional
forces. These computed frictional forces are subsequently used in the force equilibrium calculations to evaluate the transla-
tional position of the floating bearing which satisfies the equilibrium conditions.
The solvers discussed in this section are fully coupled to each other using an iterative scheme explained in [4]. The pres-
sures in the lubricating gaps from the Reynolds equation in the fluid flow solver are computed iteratively with elastic defor-
mation that is determined in the structural solver and with the evaluation of the force and moment equilibrium in the force
balance solver, until convergence is reached for the overall film thickness distribution in both the floating/gear and the solid/
gear interfaces. Further details of this numerical algorithm to achieve the FSI coupled loop can be found in [4].

3. Experimental analysis

Experimental measurements were performed in an instrumented prototype of the reference pump design for a wide
range of operating speeds (n=nref ¼ 0.11–0.94 with nref ¼ Oð10000rpmÞ) and outlet pressures (pout =pref ¼ 0.025–0.9 with
pref ¼ Oð3000psiÞ) with Jet A1 fuel as the main working fluid with the help of a dedicated fuel pump test rig, at the Rolls-
Royce Control Systems, Birmingham, United Kingdom. The ISO schematic circuit of the experimental test rig is shown in
Fig. 11 along with a simplified representation of the internal components of the reference pump and Fig. 12 contains a pic-
ture of the entire setup. Various data related to the temperatures on the pump components as well as the fuel, pump outlet
flow, outlet and inlet pressures as well as pressures around the different components were monitored using appropriate sen-
sors and recorded during experimental testing. The experimental setup allowed monitoring of fluid temperatures in the sys-
tem as well as continuous monitoring of internal pressures and temperatures of the pump components, to ensure the
consistency of the recorded measurements especially with respect to the hysteresis behavior explained in Section 1.
Although several data points and parameters required for full characterization of the reference pump, only the acquisition
of the floating bearing position data is reported in this paper in respect of the scope of the current work. An eddy current
sensor with an accuracy 0.05 mm mounted on the back of the pump casing (as shown in Fig. 11) was used to measure the
floating bearing position during the pump operation.
The experiments were conducted by successively varying the outlet pressures in steps of pout =pref ¼ 0:1 at a constant
operating speed, while starting at the lowest outlet pressure and increasing to the highest pressure and tracing the same
experimental path again from the highest to the lowest outlet pressure. Steady state monitored data was recorded at every
outlet pressure tested during the experimental campaign and the measured outlet pressures at speed of n=nref ¼ 0:55 is
shown in Fig. 13A along with the corresponding measured floating bearing position in Fig. 13B. A similar experimental
methodology was also used at other operating speeds, while the range of outlet pressures tested were different at each
speed.

Fig. 11. ISO hydraulic circuit of the experimental setup used along with a schematic representation of the location of the eddy current sensor on the
instrumented prototype to measure the floating bearing position.
670 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676

Fig. 12. Photograph of the experimental rig used for the pump measurements.

Fig. 13. (A) Measured outlet pressures at a constant speed of n=nref ¼ 0:55 while varying the outlet pressures from p=pref ¼ 0:1 to p=pref ¼ 0:4 in steps of
p=pref ¼ 0:1. (B) Corresponding measured bearing position at each operating condition. The straight red lines represent the mean position of the bearing at
each recorded operating pressure. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this
article.)

To compare the simulated results using the FSI lateral gap model discussed in Section 2 and study the effect of frictional
forces as explained in Section 1, the input operating conditions of pressure and speed to the gap model were similar to the
one used in experiments. The starting gap heights at each operating delivery pressure in the lateral gap simulations were
obtained from the converged floating bearing position from the previous operating pressure.
Due to the complexities involved in directly using the measured floating bearing positions since the location of the sensor
is susceptible to deformation, it becomes quite difficult to track the direct location of the sensor from the model predictions.
To overcome these issues and compare the experimental results with simulations, relative position of the floating bearing is
evaluated with respect to the minimum outlet pressure at a given measured speed with the help of Eq. (17).
hrel;exp ¼ hexp  hmin;exp ð17Þ
The rigid body position of the floating bearing can be directly obtaining from the tracking point T Flt;0 (shown earlier in
Fig. 7) in the lateral gap simulations at each operating condition. The position of the floating bearing relative to its position
at the starting outlet pressure can be obtained from the following equation,
hrel;sim ¼ T flt;0  T min;flt;0 ð18Þ
 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676 671

4. Simulation results and validation

The current section presents the results obtained from FSI lateral gap simulations to demonstrate the effect of frictional
forces on the lubrication performance of the fuel delivery pump. Certain modelling assumptions have been used for perform-
ing the simulations which include restricting the motion of the floating bearing, driver and the driven gears to only the axial
direction thereby allowing only one degree of freedom for each of the solid components and treating the floating bearing as
one component for the purposes of evaluating rigid body motion.

4.1. Analytical variation of friction model parameters

To find equivalent values of friction coefficient and breakaway velocities which work for both sets of simulations, efforts
were taken to understand the behavior of the friction equation in Eq. (15). Fig. 14A and B show the analytical variation of
frictional force with velocities with independently varying values of lf and v brk respectively. It can be understood from these
plots that the frictional forces increase with increasing values of v brk and lf . With this understanding, the objective was to
determine the same values of lf and v brk which predict closely the position of the floating bearing at both operating speeds
presented in this section. The values of lf ¼ 0:008 and v =v brk ¼ 1:29 were chosen in the friction model to simulate the oper-
ating conditions reported in the remaining sections of this article. It must also be noted here that the values of forces and the
velocity have been normalized with F ref ¼ Oð1000NÞ and v ref ¼ Oð0:005m=sÞ respectively.

4.2. Simulations at a constant operating speed of n=nref ¼ 0:55

In the first set of simulations, the operating speed was kept constant at n=nref ¼ 0:55 while the outlet pressures were var-
ied at pout =pref ¼ 0:1, pout =pref ¼ 0:2, pout =pref ¼ 0:3 and pout =pref ¼ 0:4 successively before retracing the path and reducing
from pout =pref ¼ 0:4 to pout =pref ¼ 0:1 in steps of pout =pref ¼ 0:1 to complete the simulation cycle in a manner similar to exper-
iments described in Section 3. Table 3 summarizes the various parameters and their corresponding values used in the first
set of simulations. It must be noted here that the values of friction coefficient and breakaway velocity were assumed.
A starting gap height of 1 mm was assumed for the starting outlet pressure of pout =pref ¼ 0:1 and the gap film thickness
results at this operating condition for both the lubricating interfaces are shown in Fig. 15. The gap heights obtained at con-
vergence at pout =pref ¼ 0:1 are then used as starting gap heights at pout =pref ¼ 0:2, which in turn are successively used in
pout =pref ¼ 0:3. This pattern of passing gap height information then continues to pout =pref ¼ 0:4 followed by pout =pref ¼ 0:3
and pout =pref ¼ 0:2. The film thickness distributions for these operating conditions are shown in Figs. 15–21. It is observed

Fig. 14. (A) Analytical variation of frictional force with velocity for varying l at v brk =v brkref ¼ 0:32. (B) Analytical variation of frictional force with velocity
for varying v brk at.lf ¼ 0:01

Table 3
Parameters used in the simulations at operating speed of n=nref ¼ 0:55:

Parameters Values
Starting gap height h=href ¼ 0:33
Starting outlet pressure pout =pref ¼ 0:1
Inlet pressure pin =pref ¼ 0:037
Starting friction coefficient 0.008
Breakaway velocity v =v ref ¼ 1:29
Simulated outlet pressures pout =pref ¼ 0:1, p=pref ¼ 0:2, p=pref ¼ 0:3,p=pref ¼ 0:4
Operating speed n=nref ¼ 0:55
672 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676

Fig. 15. Film thickness distributions in first leg of friction simulations at n=nref ¼ 0:55and pout =pref ¼ 0:1 in (A) Floating/Gears Interface (B) Solid/Gears
Interface.

Fig. 16. Film thickness distributions in first leg of friction simulations at n=nref ¼ 0:55 and pout =pref ¼ 0:2 in (A) Floating/Gears Interface (B) Solid/Gears
Interface.

Fig. 17. Film thickness distributions in first leg of friction simulations at n=nref ¼ 0:55 and pout =pref ¼ 0:3 in (A) Floating/Gears Interface (B) Solid/Gears
Interface.

Fig. 18. Film thickness distributions in first leg of friction simulations at n=nref ¼ 0:55 and pout =pref ¼ 0:4 in (A) Floating/Gears Interface (B) Solid/Gears
Interface.

from these plots that as the gap height information is passed along successive simulations, the film thickness increases with
increasing pressure. Furthermore, the gap heights in the second leg of these simulations are higher for a given outlet pressure
since the starting gaps are higher from higher input outlet pressures. It must be noted here that all the film thickness plots
presented in this section have been normalized using href ¼ Oð3lmÞ and common scales are not used in these plots to ensure
that all relevant details are completely visible.
The relative positions of the floating bearing at different operating pressures in both the legs of this set of friction sim-
ulations are computed using Eqs. (15) and (16) and the comparison plot is shown in Fig. 22. It can be seen from this plot
that the simulated positions of the floating bearing match closely with the experimental measurements. This result also
 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676 673

Fig. 19. Film thickness distributions in second leg of friction simulations at n=nref ¼ 0:55and pout =pref ¼ 0:3 in (A) Floating/Gears Interface (B) Solid/Gears
Interface.

Fig. 20. Film thickness distributions in second leg of friction simulations at n=nref ¼ 0:55 and pout =pref ¼ 0:2 in (A) Floating/Gears Interface (B) Solid/Gears
Interface.

Fig. 21. Film thickness distributions in second leg of friction simulations at n=nref ¼ 0:55 and pout =pref ¼ 0:1 in (A) Floating/Gears Interface (B) Solid/Gears
Interface.

Fig. 22. Comparison of experimental and simulated predictions of relative floating bearing position at n=nref ¼ 0:55set of friction simulations.
674 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676

implies that the lateral gap model with frictional forces can predict the ‘‘hysteresis” change in bearing position as the exper-
iments progress over different operating pressures.

4.3. Simulations at a constant operating speed of n=nref ¼ 0:78

The second set of friction simulations was performed with operating speed of n=nref ¼ 0:78 with the related parameters
and its values as listed in Table 4. The strategy of passing gap height information across successive runs similar to the first set
of simulations is used.
Fig. 23 shows the comparison of predicted and experimental floating bearing position at the second set of operating con-
ditions. It can be seen that while the model captures the trend of the bearing movement, it has a higher deviation at higher
pressures (pout =pref ¼ 0:8). While reasons for this deviation could include possible higher deformation of the sensor affecting
measurements at higher pressures, not accounted by the numerical model, further investigation could be carried out to
improve the current model predictions at these higher pressures. However, it is still important to note here that the lateral
gap module can predict the bearing position trends at these higher pressures and is quite reliable at lower pressures and
lower speeds.

4.4. Significance of the radial forces on the axial balance system

Once the numerical model is tuned to reflect the measured behavior of the floating bearing model, it can be of interest to
describe the model potentials for analyzing the importance of the frictional force components with respect to the axial force
components due to the fluid pressure acting on the balancing areas of the floating bearing, as highlighted in Fig. 8. For this
purpose, a study was conducted on the position of the floating bearing, measured with the position at T Flt;0 , as a function of
the nose pressure on the back of the floating bearing (highlighted in blue in Fig. 8A). The value of the nose pressure directly
affects the axial force acting on the floating bearing, thus has an impact on the axial balance system of the considered pump.
Moreover, due to the design features that realize the fluid connections between the inlet environment and the nose pressure
(not shown for confidentiality), and the presence of internal leakages, it is realistic to assume that the nose pressure can be in
a certain extent higher than the inlet pressure.
In order to use the proposed simulation model to study these effects, the nose pressure was varied from pin up to 25% of
the pout value, for different operating conditions, of which three of significance (OC1, OC2 and OC3) are detailed in Fig. 24. In

Table 4
Parameters used in the simulations at operating speed of n=nref ¼ 0:78:

Parameters Values
Starting gap height h=href ¼ 0:33
Starting outlet pressure pout =pref ¼ 0:3
Inlet pressure pin =pref ¼ 0:05
Starting Friction Coefficient 0.008
Breakaway velocity v =v ref ¼ 1:29
Simulated outlet pressures pout =pref ¼ 0:3, pout =pref ¼ 0:5,pout =pref ¼ 0:8
Operating speed n=nref ¼ 0:78

Fig. 23. Comparison of experimental and simulated predictions of relative floating bearing position at n=nref ¼ 0:78 set of friction simulations.
 D. Thiagarajan et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 129 (2019) 659–676 675

Fig. 24. Plot showing the effect of varying nose pressures on the position of the floating bearing at different operating conditions. Details of the operating
conditions are shown in the table.

all the cases presented in this section, the values of lf ¼ 0:02 and v =v ref ¼ 0:32 have been consistently used with a starting
gap height of h=href ¼ 0:67. These values differ from those used for the model validation (Tables 3 and 4), so that the actual
behavior of the reference unit is not shown to respect confidentiality.
For the highest pout value (OC3), it is clear how the nose pressure value does not influence the resulting position of the
floating bearing, implying the dominant effect of the frictional forces. The cases forpout > 0:3pref would give similar curves
as OC3. However, for lower pout values (OC1 and OC2) the effect of the nose pressure becomes relevant, and pressurizations
of the nose area has an influence on the axial balance system of the pump. The rotational speed also plays a (secondary)
influence, due to the hydrodynamic terms affecting the pressure build up in the lateral gap.

5. Conclusions

This paper presents the methods and the results of a research activity focused on the understanding of the axial balance
system of external gear pumps (EGPs) that use symmetric pressure compensation designs and floating bearing blocks. These
pumps are commonly used in aerospace fuel delivery applications. In these units, the effect of the frictional forces on the
motion of the floating bearing blocks has a relevant effect on the axial compensation system of the EGP that has not been
addressed in the literature known by the authors.
With the goal of better understanding the effect of these frictional forces, an experimental activity was performed at the
Rolls-Royce Control System facility in Birmingham (UK), to support a numerical activity performed at Purdue University
(USA) using the simulation model HYGESim developed at the Maha Fluid Power Research Center of Purdue University.
The experimental setup included a prototype unit derived from an aerospace fuel delivery EGP and properly instrumented
to measure the position of the floating bearing while also monitoring the other main features of the EGP operation. The for-
mulation of the numerical model was modified to integrate a newly proposed axial balance model that include the effect of
frictional forces.
The experimental results clearly show the effect of the frictional forces which was demonstrated by a hysteresis behavior
of the floating bearing movements. The numerical model has the ability to capture this behavior observed experimentally, at
least for low and medium operating pressures. More deviations between the simulation results and the experimental data
are observed at higher operating pressures, and a possible explanation could be given by the elastic deformation effects of
the position sensor arrangement and of the pump body which have not been considered in the numerical model. The results
shown in the paper also demonstrate how the proposed model is suitable for insight into studies of the axial balance mech-
anism of the reference EGP.
With such capabilities as a design tool, the FSI gap model in the current work has potential to improve the reliability, life
and operating efficiency of pressure compensated, asymmetric balanced EGPs like those commonly used in aerospace fuel
delivery.

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