Integrated Pump Bearing with Eccentric Seal Groove for Leakage Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional pump bearing arrangements with two separate bearings lead to high internal leakages and inefficiencies due to alignment issues and surface discontinuities, making it difficult to seal effectively.
Innovation Solution
A single-piece pump bearing design with eccentric seal grooves and pressure balance grooves that vary in depth and orientation to accommodate both drive and driven-side shafts, ensuring proper alignment and sealing by using a single integrated bearing surface.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If two separate bearings are used for drive side and driven side, then the bearing arrangement is easier to manufacture, but internal leakages increase and sealing becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines two separate bearings into a single integrated bearing structure that supports both drive-side and driven-side shafts. This merging eliminates the interface discontinuity between separate bearings, providing a continuous sealing surface that reduces internal leakages and improves sealing efficiency while maintaining manufacturing feasibility.
2Ease of manufacture
If two separate bearings are used, then manufacturing is easier, but alignment between bearings becomes problematic
Solution Approach 1:
By integrating both drive-side and driven-side bearing functions into a single bearing component, the patent eliminates alignment issues between separate bearings. The single-piece construction ensures precise alignment of bearing surfaces and shaft support locations, removing the need for complex alignment procedures while maintaining ease of manufacture.
3Reliability
If a single piece bearing is used, then sealing is easier, but alignment issues arise due to tolerancing
Solution Approach 1:
The single integrated bearing design provides a continuous sealing surface that simplifies sealing compared to two-piece arrangements. The bearing incorporates both drive-side and driven-side shaft support bores within a single monolithic structure, ensuring inherent alignment between all bearing surfaces and eliminating tolerancing accumulation issues.
4Manufacturing precision
If a single piece bearing is used, then alignment is improved, but manufacturing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
While the single bearing integrates multiple functions, the overall device complexity remains manageable because it replaces two separate bearing components with one unified structure. The bearing includes drive-side and driven-side shaft support bores, sealing surfaces, and alignment features all in one component, reducing assembly complexity and improving alignment without proportionally increasing manufacturing difficulty.
Data Source
AI summary
A pump bearing for use in a gear pump including a top face, a side face perimetrically surrounding the top face, a bottom face opposed to the top face, a first bearing bore projecting from the top face to the bottom face defining an axis and configured to contain a drive-side shaft, and a groove within the side face located between the top face and the bottom face a variable depth in a direction perpendicular to the axis configured to a receive seal.