In the applications of the large transient power hydraulic systems, the nonlinear disturbance forces have a significant influence on the performance of the injection system, and it is necessary to take some detail analyses to reduce the influence of the nonlinear disturbance forces. According to the analyses of nonlinear disturbance forces, it can be considered that the flow forces are the major disturbance force. The optimization of the poppet geometry is presented to reduce the axial flow forces. A numerical simulation method is applied to obtain the visualization of the internal flow and achieve a better understanding of the flow field in the valve with double-U-grooves. The main influential geometry parameters of the metering edge were defined and the 3-D computational models were established. Then effects of various parameters on the axial flow forces were studied in detail by using the commercial software ANSYS/Fluent. And the simulation results indicate that the distance between the small U-grooves and the big U-grooves has a major influence on the axial flow forces, and the maximal axial flow forces can be significantly reduced by optimizing the geometry parameters of the valve poppet. Finally, the simulation model of the injection system has been established in AMESim and the simulation results prove that optimum parameters of the poppet can obviously improve the injection performance.

The tribopairs of water hydraulic plunger pumps are usually operated under severe conditions, due to the poor lubrication of water and silt suspended in natural water. It is essential to identify the desired engineering materials and material combinations for designing water pumps. As the candidate materials of tribopairs, the tribological characteristics of different Al₂O₃-TiO₂ coatings combined with Si₃N₄ ceramics under silt-laden water and tap water lubrication were investigated. The Al₂O₃-TiO₂ coatings with different weight percentages of TiO₂ in a wide range from 3 to 100% were tested. The tribological characteristics of the various couple pairs were researched using a ring-on-ring test rig. The microstructures of the contact surfaces were analyzed with a scanning electron microscope before and after the test to study the wear mechanism. The experimental results indicate that the friction coefficient of the Al₂O₃-TiO₂/Si₃N₄ tribopairs increases with an increase in the percentage of TiO₂ content in the Al₂O₃-TiO₂ coating. However, the TiO₂ content does not present a clear relationship with the wear rate. Considering the friction and wear properties, Al₂O₃-13%TiO₂ is the preferred coating to use in water hydraulic pumps when sliding against Si₃N₄.

In large-power and high-pressure hydraulic systems, the maximum instantaneous flow rate is often several thousand liters per minute. Normal proportional valves are often difficult to meet their requirements for large flow rate and fast response at the same time. And the leakage of hydraulic oil will seriously pollute the environment. Therefore, a novel water hydraulic proportional valve with fast response and high flow capacity is presented for the large transient power hydraulic system in this paper. The valve utilizes a two-stage structure with two 2/2-way water hydraulic proportional valves as the pilot stage and a cartridge poppet valve as the main stage to achieve fast-response and large-flow capacity simultaneously. A detailed and precise nonlinear mathematical model of the valve considering both structural parameters and flow force is developed. A comprehensive performance optimization has been carried out, which can be mainly divided into computational fluid dynamics simulation optimization based on reducing flow force and multi-objective optimization based on genetic algorithm. The effects of double U-grooves' parameters on the flow force (flow-induced loads) have been studied in detail by numerical simulation. Through the grooves geometry optimization, the maximum flow force can be reduced by 10%. Then, the influences of structure parameters on the performance of step response have been studied, and the optimal parameters of the valve have been obtained by multi-objective optimization based on genetic algorithm. The maximum overshoot has been reduced from 15% to 6% (about 60%) and the adjusting time has been reduced from 58 ms to 48 ms. The dynamic characteristics of the valve have been improved effectively. Finally, a test apparatus which has the ability to provide transient large flow is built. The accuracy of simulation model and optimization design method is verified by test results.

With the enhancement of environmental protection awareness of the international community and the continuous promotion of green and sustainable development of manufacturing industry, water lubrication instead of mineral oil has become the future development trend due to its green, pollution-free, clean, safe, and sustainable advantages especially in ships, marine, coal mining, and other fields. In recent years, with the rapid development of water lubrication research, significant progress has been made in related research knowledge domain and discipline. A systematic and extensive assessment of water lubrication research has become increasingly important. The objective of this research is to reveal the research status, research hotspots, and development trends in the field of water lubrication. Therefore, CiteSpace was used to conduct a systematic bibliometric and scientometrical analysis of 1,792 publications from Web of Science core collection database (1997–2021). The results show that China and USA are the most productive countries in the field of water lubrication and have made outstanding contributions. Through the analysis of hot key words and co-citation references, this paper reviews the research status of water lubrication in three aspects: (1) lubricating medium modification; (2) material preparation; (3) surface optimization. It has become a research hotspot to promote the superlubricity contact interface and the application of nanotechnology. The results of this study can make a significant contribution to the development of water lubrication by providing a comprehensive understanding of the research status and research hotspots in this field. Personal understanding and discussion of research hotspots and research status are expected to provide insights into future research trends. In addition, this study will provide valuable references and guidelines for researchers who are interested in this field.