As a core power component, aviation piston pumps are widely used in aircraft hydraulic systems. The piston pump’s power-to-weight ratio is extremely crucial in the aviation industry, and the “ceiling effect” of the PV value (product of compressive stress and linear velocity) limits the piston pump’s ability to increase working pressure. Therefore, increasing the piston pump’s speed has been a real breakthrough in terms of further enhancing the power-to-weight ratio. However, the piston pump’s design faces several challenges under the extreme operating conditions at high speeds. This study reviews several problems aviation axial piston pumps face under high-speed operating conditions, including friction loss, cavitation, cylinder overturning, flow pressure pulsation, and noise. It provides a detailed description of the research state of the art of these problems and potential solutions. The axial piston pump’s inherent sliding friction pair, according to the report, considerably restricts further increasing of its speed and power-to-weight ratio. With its mature technology and deep research base, the axial piston pump will continue to dominate the aviation pumps. Furthermore, breaking the limitation of the sliding friction pair on speed and power density, thus innovating a novel structure of the piston pump, is also crucial. Therefore, this study also elaborates on the working principle and development process of the two-dimensional (2D) piston pump, which is a representative of current high-speed pump structure innovation.

In order to improve the volumetric efficiency of the axial piston pump, this paper proposes a novel stacked roller 2D piston pump. It utilizes the alternate communication between the distribution cylinder and the oil intake and discharge ports of the housing to realize the flow distribution. While removing the independent flow distribution mechanism of the traditional piston pump, the leakage loss at the distribution friction pair can be reduced to improve the volumetric efficiency. Based on the flow distribution principle, an analytical model of the volumetric efficiency of the stacked roller 2D piston pump was established. Then, a co-simulation model of the whole pump was built using both the Simulink and AMESim software. The variation curve of output flow and leakage flow under different load pressures and rotational speeds was obtained, as well as the influence of backflow, axial leakage, and circumferential leakage on the volumetric efficiency. On this basis, a prototype of the stacked roller 2D pump was designed and manufactured in order to measure the output flow under different load pressures and rotational speeds, and a dedicated test bench was established. The experimental results are consistent with the simulation results; when the rotational speed is 6000 rpm and the load pressure is 5 MPa, the volumetric efficiency of the prototype pump can reach 98.6%. The research work validates that the novel stacked roller 2D piston pump has high volumetric efficiency.