A Tridimensional CFD Analysis of the Oil Pump of an High Performance Motorbike Engine

The main target of nowadays engine designers is to focus on exhaust emissions, fuel consumption and engine performance, so during the design phase of a new internal combustion engine, all the aspects related to friction and mechanical power loss must be deeply considered. And then, also the friction related to engine lubrication system must be analyzed and studied. In this paper a tridimensional CFD analysis of the lubrication circuit oil pump of a modern high-performance engine manufactured by Aprilia will be shown. The model was build up with PumpLinx (R), a commercial CFD 3D code by Simerics Inc. (R), taking into account all the phenomena associated to the fluid cavitation. The model was validated by data of an experimental campaign performed on a hydraulic test bench, at the Industrial Engineering Department of the University of Naples, Federico II. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.