Experiment and simulation study on cavitation flow in pressure relief valve at different hydraulic oil temperatures

Abstract

Hydraulic oil is the “blood” of hydraulic system, its high temperature in low-pressure hydraulic system would promote the development of cavitation and cause severe erosion of pressure relief valve. The influence of high oil temperature on the distribution of pressure field, velocity field and vapor volume fraction are discussed experimentally and numerically. The results show that with the increasing oil temperature, the viscosity of the oil decreases, and the flow rate increases, resulting the decreasing pressure at the orifice. Higher oil temperature promotes the occurrence of cavitation in the pressure relief valve, wider low-pressure zone could be found and cavitation bubble developed more fully and towards the valve core head. When the oil temperature increases from 303 K to 353 K, the cavitation intensity rises more sharply, but the growth rate of cavitation intensity increases firstly and then decreases with the increasing input pressure. Furthermore, based on the field synergy theory, the flow resistance and energy dissipation under different oil temperatures are evaluated. Both of large viscous dissipation and effective viscosity coefficient are mainly concentrated at the orifice, which are all effected by the oil temperature, so as to the characteristics of cavitation flow. The average field synergy cosine angle and the average viscosity coefficient decreases gradually with the increasing oil temperature, while the average vapor volume fraction increases. The energy dissipation is reduced by 3.3 × 107 (W m−3) while the hydraulic oil temperature increases from 303 K to 353 K. Appropriate hydraulic oil temperature could provide favourable working conditions for the pressure relief valve which is beneficial for extending the hydraulic system's service life.