Peristaltic Pump Motor for Fluid Metering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing urine treatment systems for spacecraft face complexity in moving and metering fluids, particularly in separating and mixing water and acid for effective urine purification.
Innovation Solution
A combined peristaltic pump and motor system that utilizes pressurized water to drive the acid pump and motor, ensuring separate handling of acid and water until mixing, facilitating efficient fluid movement and metering.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If separate pumps are used for moving water and acid in urine treatment systems, then fluid handling reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the water pump and acid pump into a single integrated peristaltic pump unit with a common rotor and roller mechanism. This single pump handles both water and acid fluids through sequential operation, reducing the number of separate components while maintaining reliable fluid handling through the inherent isolation properties of the peristaltic pumping mechanism.
2Device complexity
If a combined peristaltic pump and motor system is used, then device complexity is reduced, but manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The peristaltic pump utilizes a flexible tubing element that can be pinched and deformed by the rollers. This flexibility compensates for minor manufacturing variations in roller alignment and positioning, allowing the system to achieve reliable fluid pumping without extremely tight manufacturing tolerances while maintaining the simplified combined pump-motor structure.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system effectively separates and mixes water and acid, simplifying the urine treatment process by using pressurized water as a driving force for the acid pump, ensuring efficient fluid handling and metering within the urine treatment system.
Implementation Method 1
A peristaltic motor is known e.g. from US4997347A. Moreover, a peristaltic motor has been proposed to drive a peristaltic pump.
Implementation Method 2
In a common peristaltic pump, a rotor carries a plurality of rollers, which are moved along a tube. A fluid to be moved is received in the tube. The rollers pinch the tube and as they rotate along the tube, they move the fluid from an inlet to an outlet.
Data Source
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AI summary
A peristaltic pump system (22) has a pump tube (46) and a pump rotor (51) engaging the pump tube (46). The pump rotor (51) is drivable to rotate to move a pump fluid through the pump tube (46) from a pump inlet (32) to a pump outlet (30). A motor drives the pump rotor (51) to rotate. The motor includes a motor tube (40) and a motor rotor (42) to be driven to rotate by a motor fluid moving through the motor tube (40) from a motor inlet (38) to a motor outlet (30). A urine treatment system (20) and method are also disclosed.