Mathematical Modeling of Pulsation Dampeners in Fluid Power Systems

This paper presents a new method for computer-aided modeling and analyzing of pulsation dampeners used in fluid power systems for vibration reduction. The pulsation dampeners are widely used in various fluid power systems to reduce vibration induced by power pumps. The vibration induced by power pumps in fluid systems may be severe enough to cause the damage of components in pipelines if a pulsation dampener is not installed. However, the current methods used in industries for the design and analysis of the dampeners are manually experience-orientated procedures. They are not adaptable to new technologies. The new modeling method will efficiently automate and improve the current modeling and analysis procedure of various pulsation dampeners with a minimum user effort. The proposed method is a result of utilizing the analogy between electrical circuits and hydraulic circuits. In the new method, a spherical pulsation dampener can be equivalent to a lumped hydraulic circuit installed in a distributed fluid pipeline system. The new method has been developed from the authors’ previous work of an impedance-based model in which only the effect of capacitance and inductance was considered without fluid resistance. In reality, the influence of fluid resistance is significant. This paper will take fluid resistance into considerations and form a resistance-impedance-based model.