The Theoretical Flow Ripple of an External Gear Pump

In this paper, the theoretical flow ripple of an external gear pump is studied for pumps of similar size using different numbers of teeth on the driving and driven gears. In this work, the flow ripple equation is derived based upon the flow of incompressible fluid across the changing boundaries of a control volume. From this method, it is shown that the instantaneous length of action within the gear mesh determines the instantaneous flow ripple. Using a numerical solution for the instantaneous length of action, different pump designs are compared. In summary, the results of this study show that it may be advantageous to design an external gear pump with a large number of teeth on the driving gear and a fewer number of teeth on the driven gear. This design configuration will tend to reduce both the physical pump size (without reducing the volumetric displacement of the pump) and the amplitude of the flow pulsation, while increasing the natural harmonic frequencies of the machine.Copyright © 2002 by ASME