Computational Fluid Dynamics in Solid Particles Effect Estimation in Hydraulic Poppet Valves

This paper deals with the analysis of the interaction between solid contamination and internai geometry in hydraulic conical and spherical poppet valves, performed through a non-dimensional, axis-symmetric CFD analysis of their internal flow. The information coming from the flow field solution is used to identify regions having higher probability to be impacted by particles dragged by the fluid, and to estimate the erosion potential of solid particles having different size.The value of the kinetic energy of particles approaching the walls of the geometric domain is used to estimate the amount of material potentially eroded by impacting particles, and to provide a potential correlation between ISO 4406 and NAS 1638 solid contamination level classification.The long-term target is a numerical estimation of service life in hydraulic components.