Intro

A gerotor is a positive displacement pump. The name gerotor is from "Generated Rotor". A gerotor unit
consists of an inner and outer rotor. The inner rotor has n teeth, while the outer rotor has n+ 1 teeth;
with n defined as a natural number greater than 2. The axis of the inner rotor is offset from the axis of
the outer rotor and both rotors rotate on their respective axes. The geometry of the two rotors
partitions the volume between them into n different dynamically-changing volumes. During the
assembly's rotation cycle, each of these volumes changes continuously, so any given volume first
increases, and then decreases. An increase creates a vacuum. This vacuum creates suction, and hence,
this part of the cycle is where the intake is located. As a volume decreases compression occurs. During
this compression period, fluids can be pumped, or, if they are gaseous fluids, compressed.

Gerotor pumps are generally designed using a trochoid inner rotor and an outer rotor formed by a circle
with intersecting circular arcs.

A gerotor can also function as a piston less rotary engine. High pressure gas enters the intake area and
pushes against the inner and outer rotors, causing both to rotate as the area between the inner and
outer rotor increases. During the compression period, the exhaust is pumped

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Modern day automotive research is focused on reducing cost of new vehicle without compromising the
quality. So it is imperative that an automotive supplier makes use of advanced evaluation methods to
develop new products.
Internal combustion engine is the heart of a vehicle and its performance depends on its subsystems. For
higher engine efficiency , lubrication plays a vital role. Without proper lubrication, engine components
may damage and lead to poor performance.
To pursuit consistent output from the engine, design engineers face many challenges in designing the
subsystems. One of the challenges is to design proper lubrication system, especially the oil pump. In
modern vehicle, the generated rotor (Gerotor) oil pump drives the lubrication system to next level in
order to meet the latest trend of engine design.
The Gerotor pump is an internal gear type-rotary positive displacement pump. It takes power from
engine crankshaft. Now a days it is widely used in automotives for oil and fuel supply because of its
unique working capabilities, simplicity , flexibility in design and ease of manufacturing.
Significant amount of money and time are spent for developing such pump by means of experimental
and analytical techniques. In order to minimize the duration for developing such a product, numerical
techniques like CFD plays a crucial role, since it helps simulate the actual physics to study the results
with less dependency on experimental test setups

Now let’s look into the approach used to automate the pump analysis using CFD, to imulate flow
through Gerotor oil pump to attain the flow requirements of the engine.

Fluid Domain preparation strategy

As the first step of CFD analysis, raw 3D CAD model needs to be pre-processed. Fluid flow path from the
CAD model has to be extracted with acceptable accuracy. This should be studied thoroughly and
modified considering the constraints of meshing and solver activities. For example, to run CFD analysis
of a Gerotor pump, narrow chamfers and corners in the model has to be simplified to improve the mesh
quality without compromising with the flow physics.

Meshing Strategy
Tetrahedral mesh are used for the ports (static zones) of the pump. Pure Hexahedral elements are used
to generate structured mesh of rotor core (refer fig. 02, 03) for the fluid flowing gap between inner and
outer gear teeth.
To simulate transient CFD analysis of the Gerotor pump, interfaces are formed to simulate sliding effect
of the rotor inside the port cavity. UDF (user defined function program) is used to move the nodes of
hexahedral elements of the rotor core to simulate the uneven rotation of inner gear and outer gear

For pre-processing, Ansys ICEM-CFD can be used for generating tetrahedral and hexahedral mesh.

Solution Method Solver Setting

Transient analysis is carried out in this case to capture time based variation in the performance
parameters. Pressure based constant model is used since oil behaves like an incompressible fluid under
observatory operating conditions. For simplicity, temperature of the oil is assumed constant.

To model turbulence, k-e model with standard wall function is used. PISO velocity coupling with PRESTO
algorithm for pressure is used for quick convergence. To model cavitation and to evaluate suction time,
multiphase model is preferred with liquid and vapour mixture fluid properties. To solve the case, Ansys
FLUENT CFD tool was used.

Boundary Conditions

Pertaining to boundary conditions, inlet and outlet were kept under atmospheric conditions with the
speed of inner rotor in rpm taken into consideration.

Pump Performance Prediction

CFD analysis helps to validate critical performance parameters namely flow rate, pressure head and
shaft torque required at different operating conditions.

To generate performance curve of the pump, power and efficiency parameters can be numerically
calculated using observed values of torque required by inner rotor and flow rate of the pump, which can
be further validated with experimental data.

Model Validation

CFD simulation can be used to study the performance of different pump designs, under various
operating conditions. Such prediction helps the designers to pick the best performing model from the
bunch of analyzed models even without making prototypes and going through tedious time and money
consuming conventional procedures.

NPSH and Flow Rate Prediction

From the CFD results, NPSH (Net positive suction Head) can be predicted (refer fig. 06). Reliability of the
results has been verified by comparing with the experimental data.

Leakage and Shaft Torque

Simulation of Gerotor pump helps predicting torque, cavitation, pressure acting on the seal and forces
on the shaft. Pure hexahedral mesh shown in Figure. 02 is used to capture rotor core in a Gerotor pump
to predict volumetric results like flow rate and prediction of leakage with better accuracy.
Under different operating conditions, considering different speeds and pressures, key performance
parameters namely leakage and shaft power are also investigated. Tip-to-tip clearance and leakage
paths (refer fig. 05) which will have impact on volumetric efficiency of the pump can also be studied.
Cavitation
In Gerotor pumps, flow rate is directly proportional to pump speed. But as speed increases, cavitation
may arise. CFD simulation can be used to identify threshold pump speed at which cavitation starts to
limit the loss in flow rate.

Suction Time Prediction

We can also use CFD simulation to find the time taken to suck the oil from the oil sump inlet to the
delivery point outlet (refer fig. 09). The case is setup using multiphase model. Results with suction flow
animation that can help engineer to develop optimized model.

Conclusion
Hence it is proposed to design, develop a Gerotor oil pump using CFD techniques. The CFD model is
useful for concept considerations in an early stage of product development. The model can be easily
integrated with the other associated hydraulic systems to the pump. The key performance parameter of
Gerotor pump like mass flow rate and outlet pressure with respect to speed can be easily predicted with
acceptable accuracy. From the above study, complex pumps like Gerotor can be developed as per
Industrial Standards.