Design and Modification of the Liquid Ring Vacuum Pump

Abstract

Liquid ring vacuum pump is widely used in the industries for producing vacuum. The liquid ring vacuum pump is a specific form of rotary positive displacement pump which utilizes liquid as the principle element for gas compression. In the vacuum pump different components like impeller, casing, control plate, side cover are affect the capacity of the pump. The aim of the project is to improve the capacity of the pump by modification in the existing design of impeller.Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) analysis is one of the advanced CAE tools used in the pump industry. The optimum inlet and outlet vane angles are calculated for the existing impeller by using the empirical relations. A CAD model of the existing impeller and modified impeller has been prepared us- ing PTC Creo Parametric 1.0. Ansys 14.5 Fluent has been used for meshing and the CFD analysis .Flow analysis of exisiting design and modified design has been carried out.The velocity and pressure at the outlet of the impeller is predicted from the results of CFD analysis. It is observed that performance has been improved by increasing the outlet blade angle and decreasing the inlet blade angle.Pressure and velocity are significantly increased at the outlet. It is concluded that capacity and efficiency of the pump increases by 9% and 7% respectively from old design.