CFD analysis on the effect of discharge port geometry of the hook and claw vacuum pumps

Abstract

Abstract Due to the sharp discontinuities in the profile of hook and claw pumps which make it difficult to produce a good quality body fitted mesh, their CFD simulations are challenging. However, the cut-cell Cartesian meshing method is capable to handle the very complex moving geometries and is easy to setup. However it may lead to conservativeness issues. The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of discharge port geometry of the hook and claw pump on its performance by using commercial software ANSYS Forte, which utilizes automatic mesh generation using the cut-cell Cartesian method. Firstly, five discharge ports with different geometries were designed. Secondly, the pumps with these different port configurations were set up and ran in the ANSYS Forte. Finally, the power and volume flow rate were compared. It was noticed that the geometry with the extended discharge port tip and the preliminary discharge port opening result in performance and reliability improvements. The simulation results can be used to further optimize the discharge port during the design of these machines.