Final Post

This summer has been filled with fluid power.

My research consisted of designing an external gear pump and modeling the leakage flow in MATLAB and other software platforms. The goal of the research was to be able to model the leakage flow from a pump based off of the operating conditions and the tolerances of the pump. Our first step in the research was designing the pump in Solidworks so that we could use the specifications in our MATLAB model. Then we modeled the leakage flow in MATLAB and from that, we were able to find the equivalent gap height of the pump.

The next step in the research would be to run experiments on different pumps to see if our simulation data agrees with the data obtained from the experiment. What I learned most from this research experience is that research can be a very long and arduous task, but once one of the goals of the research is accomplished it is a very rewarding feeling and definitely worth all the hard work. Advice that would I offer to future REU students is that you can never ask too many questions and to ask other people in your lab about their research because it may give you ideas for your own research and is not, at least you learned something new.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can attach my PowerPoint presentation anywhere. This has been a great summer, good luck to all of the other REU's.

-Andrew