Numerical Simulation Study on Cavitation Characteristics of Circular Arc Spiral Gear Pump at High Speed

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article concerns the interesting issue of the occurrence of cavitation in a gear pump.
The article is well written, but before publication the authors should explain and supplement the following problems:
1. The model of the phenomenon requires specifying at the beginning the simplifying assumptions of the model. In addition, it should be explained why this particular model of turbulence and cavitation was chosen.
2. All variables and parameters should be collected in nomenclature, along with a description and dimensions. This will make it easier for readers to follow the article.
3. The authors did not describe in detail the numerical tool they used in the research. Is it a commercial code or their own development? This should be supplemented. It is also beneficial to provide calculation times and other parameters of the numerical process.

4. The literature review is very limited, numerically and geographically. This should be expanded and references to publications should be made, for example, when describing the model.
5. The article contains many formal errors, e.g. lines 139, 147, 150 and others - exponents, line 216 - error?, Figure 9 - the description of the horizontal axis should be translated into English. These are sample errors, before submitting the article it should be thoroughly checked from the formal side.
6. Numerical calculations require the possibility of experimental verification. The authors should discuss this problem.
7. The results concern a specific pump. Can the conclusions be transferred, for example, to pumps of other sizes and other fluids?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors  The manuscript is focused on the cavitation problem for a gear pump operating at a high speed. Investigations into the effect from the number of teeth are not new to the field, the literature review in the paper is limited, and the accuracy of the method is not confirmed by a validation study. The exact novelty of the research is not clear, given that investigations into this type of the pump operating at a high speed have already been published, and this information is not presented in the paper. Major comments:

1. The literature review is limited to 18 sources. Please, expand References to about 30 literature items.
2. Also, there are some published papers, such as:

Zhou, Y., Hao, S., & Hao, M. (2016). Design and performance analysis of a circular-arc gear pump operating at high pressure and high speed. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, 230(2), 189-205. This paper appears to be on a very similar topic, and this paper is not included in the literature review, so that the exact difference with the published literature is not explained in the current version of the manuscript.

 

3. Given that the published literature already covered this topic, the benchmarking/validation of the model is required.
4. Minor comments:
5. When the pressure is reported, is this the gauge pressure?
6. Figure captions should be substantially revised, starting with the first figure in the paper. Please, include the description of subplots.
7. There are typos in the paper and problems with the citation format in some places.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It is recommended to address the following minor comments:

“Number of meshes” should be number of cells.

Typo in “Inlet” in the legend of Fig. 5.

Please, check lines 264-265 for format.

What means “one week of rotation”, “meshing gear” and “meshing point”? Could these expressions be replaced with something?

Some results are reported for angles of rotation, but this angle is not shown in figures. It is also not explained, how the angle corresponds to T, used to define time in another figure.

Please, strengthen the novelty claim and explain the impact of the study on the pump design or operation.

What is the value of T in Fig. 7? This variable should be explained in the text and in the nomenclature.

Please, add more details on the fluid dynamics solution settings, residuals and how the rotational motion is defined.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf