Swash Plate Piston Meshing

This section explains the settings for the swash plate piston mesh generated using the Rotor Template Mesher. This involves selection of the surfaces, directional characteristics of the mesh and other advanced mesh settings.

The parameters related to Swash Plate Piston meshing can be accessed by setting the Setup Options to Advanced Mode, as shown in Figure 6.405.

Figure 6.405 - Swash plate piston template mesher

Piston Wall

This is used to assign the piston surface as follows.

Select the piston wall surface under CAD Surfaces in the Geometric Entities Panel.
Click Add Surfaces icon to the right of Piston Wall, or click Select Piston Wall in the Properties Panel.

Note: The Select Piston Wall operation is the first in the sequence of identifying the parts of the piston/cylinder assembly.

Cylinder Wall

This is used to assign the wall surface of the piston cylinder as follows.

Select the cylinder wall surface under CAD Surfaces in the Geometric Entities Panel.
Click Add Surfaces icon to the right of Cylinder Wall, or click Select Cylinder Wall in the Properties Panel.

Note: The Select Cylinder Wall operation automatically follows the Select Piston Wall operation.

Cylinder Cap

Cylinder cap rotates with the cylinder block, but unlike the cylinder wall or piston wall, does not include any scaling (compression) or translation. This is assigned as follows.

Select the cylinder cap surface under CAD Surfaces in the Geometric Entities Panel.
Click Add Surfaces icon to the right of Cylinder Cap, or click Select Cylinder Cap in the Properties Panel.

Note: The Select Cylinder Cap operation automatically follows the Select Cylinder Wall operation.

Cylinder MGI

Cylinder MGI is the surface adjacent to Cylinder Cap which dynamically interacts with the valve plate. This is assigned as follows.

Select the cylinder MGI surface under CAD Surfaces in the Geometric Entities Panel
Click Add Surfaces icon to the right of Cylinder MGI, or click Select Cylinder MGI in the Properties Panel.

Note: The Select Cylinder MGI operation automatically follows the Select Cylinder Cap operation.

Number of Pistons

Specify the number of pistons in the pump that get created during meshing.

Note: The number of pistons specified during the Rotor Template Mesher operation does affect the geometry as the pistons are cloned from the single piston assembly. This is also used in conjunction with the Time Steps Per Piston Rotation to determine the number of degrees the pistons are rotated every time-step.

Rotational Axis Vector

Specify the direction of the axis of rotation of the swash plate pump (see Figure 6.407) in coordinates.

Swash Plate Center

This is the center of the swash plate, located on the intersection of the swash plate axis of rotation and the plane containing the centers of the ball joint sockets (see Figure 6.406). It is used to determine the position and motion of the pistons as the pump rotates during simulation. Specify the center in co-ordinates.

Figure 6.406 - Swash plate center

Figure 6.407 - Rotational axis vector-Swash plate

The other parameters Critical Edge Angle, Curvature Resolution, Maximum Cell Size, Minimum Cell Size and Cell Size on Surfaces are defined in General Mesher section of Panels.