Prediction of Particle Resuspension and Particle Accumulation in Hydraulic Reservoirs Using Three-Phase CFD Simulations

The reduction of hydraulic oil contamination in gaseous (air), liquid (water) and solid (particles) form is highly relevant for hydraulic systems. It minimizes machine downtime, avoids technical failures, and reduces wear of mechanical components and fluid degradation. Particle and water separation are achieved by hydraulic filters. The separation of air bubbles must be undertaken by the reservoir, furthermore the reservoir can support the separation of (free) water and particles. In this paper, stationary results over a wide range of oil flow rates were determined using Eulerian CFD codes. Thus, codes are extended with Lagrangian particle tracking, to determine the size-dependent particle resuspension rate and particle accumulation areas. The results of the particle model were compared and adjusted to experiments, using mineral oil and aluminum oxide test dust. Particle accumulation areas are identified by local deposition distributions for each particle size. An overall distribution was identified by weighting distributions for each particle diameter.