Abstract
Pump-controlled hydraulic systems can effectively eliminate throttling losses, but one issue is the unequal flow rate through an asymmetric actuator, which is widely used in hydraulic systems. In this study, a new concept of asymmetric pump is presented, which is a kind of swash plate axial piston pump, with four ports, that intakes and discharges oil twice in one revolution cycle. According to the area ratio of a single-rod cylinder,
Introduction
The fluid power is widely used to transfer power in many engineering applications such as mobile machines and mining facilities. The advantages of fluid power have been high power density, low inertia, continuously variable power transmission, high smoothness in heavy load low-speed applications and so on. However, the efficiency of fluid power is lower than electrical and mechanical drive units because of throttling losses. 1 So, the displacement-controlled system, also known as the pump-controlled system, has been put forward to eliminate throttling losses. By adjusting the displacement or the drive speed of a pump, the flow rate going through the hydraulic actuator can be well adapted to load requirements.
One difficult problem for pump-controlled system is the differential areas of a single-rod cylinder, which is widely used commonly in hydraulics. Until now, several hydraulic circuit solutions have been developed to compensate the different asymmetric volume flows in and out of the two chambers of a single-rod cylinder. Berbuer 2 introduced a hydraulic transformer for unequal flow rate compensation in 1988. Continued work based on the same principle was done by Lodewyks. 3
In 1994, Hewett 4 patented a closed-circuit displacement control idea. He adopted a variable displacement pump and a low-pressure charge line to deal with the unequal flow rate for the single-rod cylinder. 4 A 2-position, 3-way valve is used to connect the charge line to the low-pressure side of the actuator when volumetric flow compensation is required. A similar closed-circuit solution was developed by Rahmfeld and Ivantysynova, 5 Rahmfeld et al. 6 and Ivantysynova. 7 In 20120, Wang et al. 8 presented a new scheme of a closed hydraulic circuit for a single-rod cylinder. The unequal flow rate is balanced through one of the pilot-operated check valves to the low-pressure side whose pressure is close to the charge pump. Another way to compensate the difference in volumetric flow through the single-rod cylinder is by using a double pump–controlled system. 9
The solutions mentioned above usually require auxiliary valves and pump, which sometimes may result in more complex, expensive and bulky hydraulic systems. To alleviate the above limitations, Quan
10
and Zhang et al.
11
presented an asymmetric pump–controlled system, as shown in Figure 1, in which the asymmetric pump has three ports, namely, ports A–C. The flow rate ratio of ports A–C is designed as

Asymmetric pump–controlled asymmetric actuator.
In this research, continued work based on the same principle10,11 will be conducted, and a new concept of fixed displacement asymmetric axial piston pump (DAAPP) is presented, which has a valve plate with four kidney slots and four ports in the pump casing. Next to a description of the working principle of the DAAPP, the pumping dynamics of it are investigated by means of software package ITI-SimulationX®. Based on computer simulation results, a DAAPP prototype was machined. Then some qualitative tests have been conducted on the test rig.
Operation principle of DAAPP
Basic structure
It is well known that a balanced vane pump has two independent suction and discharge areas and draws and delivers oil twice per revolution. By referring to the working principle of the balanced vane pump, the conventional axial piston pump is redesigned to make it suck and discharge oil twice each cycle.
A schematic diagram of a DAAPP illustrating the basic parts is presented in Figure 2. The cylinder block is rotated by means of drive shaft and is held in contact with the valve plate by a combination of a compression spring and the pressure. A ball-and-socket joint connects the base of each piston to a slipper pad. These slippers are held against the swash plate by a retainer. The angle between the pivot center of the slippers and swash plate rotating center is defined as

Schematic diagram of DAAPP.
As shown in Figures 2 and 3, the valve plate of DAAPP has four semi-circular slots A–D. Slots A and C constitute an intake/discharge passage, and the pitch radius is

Valve plate of DAAPP.
As shown in Figure 4(a), a plurality of piston bores is provided in annular array at equal intervals in the cylinder block (in this study, the number of the piston bores is 10 because the number of pistons is 10), and the pitch radius of these piston bores is

Three-dimensional model of cylinder block of DAAPP.
Distribution method of DAAPP
As shown in Figure 5, slots A and B in the valve plate, which communicate respectively with ports A and B of DAAPP are merged and connected to the bottom chamber of an asymmetric cylinder, slot D communicating with port D is linked with the rod-side chamber of the cylinder and, finally, slot C communicating with port C in the rear cover of the DAAPP is connected to an accumulator.

Schematic diagram of DAAPP-controlled asymmetric cylinder.
In Figure 5, the area ratio of a single-rod cylinder is mathematically written as
where
The flow into/out of the bottom chamber of the cylinder is given by the following equation
where
The flow out of/into the rod-side chamber of the cylinder is given by the following equation
where
If the leak losses are ignored and fluid is incompressible, there exists
where
Substituting equations (1), (3), (4) and (5) into equation (2) yields the following result for
Dividing equation (6) by equation (3) yields the flow rate ratio of ports
To balance the unequal volumetric flow through a single-rod cylinder in a closed circuit, the ratio of

Sketch of the valve plate of a DAAPP.
Expression for modelling the discharge/intake flow for the
And the flow into/out of the
where
where
The instantaneous pressure within the
where
The total discharge flow of slot D or C is equal to the net flow generated from each piston chamber instantaneously positioned over the slot D or C in the valve plate, written as
Substituting equations (15) and (16) into equation (7) yields equation (17)
Assuming the fluid is incompressible and
According to equation (18), the number of piston bores connected with slots C and D or
Simulation of DAAPP pumping dynamics
Simulation model for DAAPP
In this study, a fixed displacement DAAPP was designed, and the swash plate angle

Simulation model of two pistons within DAAPP.
Analysis of simulation results
The following assumptions were made in the simulation calculation as follows: (1) ports A and B were intake ports, ports C and D were discharge ports and the
Figure 8 shows the instantaneous pressure and flow characteristics within the

Pressure and flow within the
In Figure 8, there are two pressure overshoots and two undershoots within the
At the end of delivery phase, the premature reduction of the delivery port flow area leads to a throttling of the piston flow. As a result, a pressure overshoot occurs. In a similar manner to that detailed above, a rapid reverse flow occurs at the beginning of the suction stroke. The initial direction of reverse flow is from the cylinder into the low-pressure intake port. As the cylinder pressure falls, the level of reverse flow reduces. In this case, there is an oscillation in flow rate, as shown in Figure 8. The reverse flow and the piston movement out of the cylinder bore lead to a pressure undershoot.
The simulation results of delivery flow and pressure of ports C and D are presented in Figures 9 and 10. In Figures 9 and 10, the profile shapes of

Pumping dynamics at ports C and D when

Pumping dynamics at ports C and D when
In Figure 9(a), the magnitude of pressure pulsations of
According to equation 17, compressibility has an impact on the design of the valve plate of DAAPP. In Figure 9(b), the mean delivery flow of
Experimental verification
Test rig
Finally, volumetric efficiency, discharge pressure and noise were measured to verify the feasibility of DAAPP. A fixed displacement DAAPP prototype was manufactured and experimentally evaluated. In the test, ports C and D were discharge ports and ports A and B were intake ports. The test unit was driven by an electric motor and loaded with two pilot pressure relief valves placed close to ports C and D. Figure 11 shows the schematic diagram of the DAAPP test bench, and Figure 12 shows a picture of the laboratory test rig. The electric motor speed can be continuously regulated by an inverter. Pressure sensors were mounted in the DAAPP delivery manifolds, as close as possible to the valve plate. Compared with the dynamic pressure, the dynamic flow is much more difficult to measure. For that reason, the delivery pressure would be used instead of comparison and analysis in this article.

Schematic diagram of the DAAPP test bench.

Picture of the test bench and valve plate.
Pumping dynamics test
To verify whether the two ports of DAAPP can discharge independently, delivery pressures of ports C and D under different conditions were performed on the test rig. Figure 13(a) shows the pressure variations of ports C and D at 1500 r/min when

Pumping dynamics at ports C and D of DAAPP under different testing conditions: (a)
Figure 13(c) shows the measured discharge pressure at 1500 r/min when the two ports were loaded with same loads. It can be found that the measured pressure waveform of
Finally, it should be noted that pressure pulsations of the calculated pressure profile do not agree with that of the measured pressure profile very well. The error increases as the load increases. The reason may be related to the compressibility in the volume between the manifold and pilot pressure relief valve upstream, which has not been accurately considered in the simulation model.
Figure 14 shows the volumetric efficiency of DAAPP prototype under different discharge pressures. In this case, ports C and D are loaded simultaneously with same delivery pressure. As shown in Figure 14, the volumetric efficiency of port C is almost same as that of port D when the load is less than or equal to 10 MPa. When the pressure is higher than 10 MPa, the efficiency of port D is slightly lower than port C. This phenomenon may attribute to the leakage flow, which increases as delivery pressure increases. At 21 MPa, the efficiencies of both port D and port C are over 0.9. It will also be observed that the volumetric efficiencies do not increase linearly with the increase of load pressure.

DAAPP volumetric efficiency.
Figure 15 shows the comparison of the DAAPP prototype noise level with ports C and D loaded simultaneously at 5, 10, 15 and 21 MPa at 1000 and 1500 r/min. The sound level meter is located 1 m from the DAAPP prototype. At load pressure ranges from 5 to 21 MPa, the increment of the noise level at 1000 and 1500 r/min is 2.7 and 3.2 dB, respectively. For operating at a speed of 1500 r/min, the measured noise level was about 80.7 dB at 21 MPa. Over the whole span of range, it can be concluded that the noise level increases as the load pressure rises when rotating speed keeps certain and increases as rotating speed increases when the load pressure keeps certain. It is well known that pressure pulsation is one of the principle sources on noise emission in the axial piston pumps. But it is noted that the rotational speed has a more significant effect on noise level than delivery pressure. For example, at rotational speed ranges from 1000 to 1500 r/min, the noise level is increased by 3.8 dB when the delivery pressure is 21 MPa. On one hand, these phenomena may be related with the fixed size of the discharge line and valve in the test system. When the rotational speed increases, the discharge flow rates increase and they would lead to the increase in the pressure pulsations in piston cylinder. On the other hand, it is difficult to completely avoid pressure pulsation in hoses and other sound sources, such as the noise of the motor and coupling effecting on the measured results.

Comparison of DAAPP noise.
Qualitative test of DAAPP used in a closed circuit
To verify whether the DAAPP prototype can be used in a closed-circuit hydraulic system, qualitative test was conducted. The diameters of the rod and the piston are 45 and 63 mm, respectively. The area ratio of the rod side to the bottom chamber side is about 0.49. As shown in Figure 16, during time interval, 1 <

Qualitative test of DAAPP-controlled system.
Conclusion
To implement asymmetric pump–controlled asymmetric actuator in a closed circuit, as shown in Figure 1, a new concept of asymmetric axial piston pump has been proposed for compensating the unequal flow rate of the asymmetric cylinder in a closed hydraulic circuit. The novelty is that the innovative design and configuration of the valve plate in the pump have been provided. The pump has two intake ports and two delivery ports. In one revolution cycle, the pump intakes and discharges oil twice.
A basic equation about the design of the valve plate within DAAPP is obtained. It shows that the flow rate ratio of DAAPP’s two delivery ports can be designed as (1 −
The simulation results show that the compressibility has a little effect on the flow rate ratio of DAAPP’s two delivery ports. Thence, in the design of the valve plate of DAAPP, the fluid can be assumed to be incompressible. If DAAPP is used in a closed-circuit hydraulic system, ports A and B of DAAPP should be merged and connected to the bottom chamber of the cylinder, port D is linked with the rod-side chamber of the cylinder, and finally, port C is connected to an accumulator or tank.
In the future, the design of the valve plate will be optimized to further improve pumping dynamics of DAAPP. Also, the variable displacement components for DAAPP will be researched and designed.
Footnotes
Appendix 1
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Funding
The research study reported here is supported by Shanxi Province Science Foundation for Youths (Grant No. 2012021021-8) and Open Fund of The State Key Lab of Fluid Power Transmission and Control of Zhejiang University (Grant Nos GZKF-2008006 and GZKF-201113).
