Hydraulic manifold design via additive manufacturing optimized with CFD and fluid-structure interaction simulations
ISSN: 1355-2546
Article publication date: 19 December 2018
Issue publication date: 17 October 2019
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the feasibility of using additive manufacturing (AM) technique to produce an efficient valve manifold for hydraulic actuator by redesigning valve blocks produced by conventional methods.
Design/methodology/approach
A priori, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was carried out using the software ANSYS Fluent to determine the optimal flow path that results in least pressure drop, highest average velocity and least energy losses. Fluid–structure interaction (FSI) simulations, processed with imported pressure distribution from the CFD, were conducted to determine the resulting loading and deformations of the manifold assembly.
Findings
The new design offers a 23 per cent reduction of oil volume in the circuit, while weighing 84 per cent less. When using the new design, a decrease of pressure drop by nearly 25 per cent and an increase in the average velocity by 2.5 per cent is achieved. A good agreement, within 16 per cent, is found in terms of the pressure drop between the experiment and computational model.
Originality/value
It is possible to build an efficient hydraulic manifold design by iterative refinement for adequate production via selective laser melting (SLM) and minimize used material to circumventing building support structures in non-machinable features of the manifold.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank: Hydropa GmbH for providing the testing facility; Axel Binner for testing support, Axel Kellermann for providing the technical data; Witalij Milberger for the experimental setup; Friedrich Janzen for using AM facility; Klaus Timmer for making the build; and Ralph Lindken for useful discussions. Malcom Usher for assistant in editing the manuscript.
Author Disclosure Statement: No competing financial interests exist.
Citation
Alshare, A.A., Calzone, F. and Muzzupappa, M. (2019), "Hydraulic manifold design via additive manufacturing optimized with CFD and fluid-structure interaction simulations", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 25 No. 9, pp. 1516-1524. https://doi.org/10.1108/RPJ-03-2018-0064
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited