The aim of this paper is the analysis of a Diesel engine lubrication circuit with a tri-dimensional CFD technique. The simulation model was built using Pumplinx®, a commercial code by Simerics Inc.®, developed and optimized for predicting oil flow rates and cavitation phenomena. The aim of this paper is, also, to show that this code is able to satisfactorily model, in a very “economic” way, an unsteady hydraulic system such as the lubrication circuit
First of all, an accurate model of a lubrication circuit oil pump will be described. The model was validated with data from an experimental campaign carried out in the hydraulic laboratory of the Industrial Engineering Department of the University of Naples.
Secondly, the oil pump model was coupled with a tri-dimensional model of the entire lubrication circuit, in order to compute all the hydraulic resistances of the network and the oil consumption rate of the circuit components