Wear Generation in Hydraulic Pumps

This paper is concerned with the synergistic effects of pump wear modes. The objective is to investigate the wear produced by cavitation, adhesion, abrasion, and corrosion and to verify a proposed model of the synergistic pump wear process. The approach followed includes identification of the combined effects of different wear modes (synergisms) in a pump and the development of a synergistic wear model that includes pump operating and environmental conditions as trigger factors of wear modes. An experimental program was designed to evaluate the cavitation, adhesion, and corrosion wear effects in conjunction with the abrasive wear produced in a pump by measuring wear debris, particle size and gravimetric levels of fluid. The generation of wear was traced to different pump locations. The results obtained here suggest that improved pump design and longer pump service life can be obtained when synergisms between failure modes are properly understood.