Pump With Broken Circular Gap Surfaces For Clogging Prevention
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Solution Overview
Problem
Pumps designed for contaminated liquids with solid matter, such as agricultural waste, face clogging issues due to solid matter adhering to gap surfaces, leading to imbalance, frictional forces, and risk of pump failure, with widening the gap causing damage to the drive shaft sealing assembly and leakage.
Innovation Solution
The pump features a broken circular outer and inner gap-delimiting surface arrangement with wave-shaped edges to prevent clogging, ensuring that solid matter is scraped off and directed away from the gap, maintaining a narrow gap width to prevent deflection and damage to the drive shaft sealing assembly.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the gap width is increased to prevent clogging, then the risk of solid matter clogging the gap is reduced, but the drive shaft sealing assembly has a greater tendency to be damaged and pumped liquid leaks into the sealing unit and drive unit
Solution Approach 1:
The gap-delimiting surfaces are segmented with broken circular patterns featuring multiple radial segments. These segments create a non-continuous surface structure that prevents solid matter from adhering and clogging the gap, while maintaining a narrow overall gap width to protect the sealing assembly.
Solution Approach 2:
The gap-delimiting surfaces employ asymmetric broken circular patterns rather than symmetric continuous circles. This asymmetric segmentation disrupts the adhesion of solid matter while preserving the narrow gap dimension, resolving the contradiction between clogging prevention and sealing protection.
2Productivity
If the gap width is increased to prevent clogging, then solid matter can pass through more easily, but lateral forces and frictional forces increase leading to breakage risk
Solution Approach 1:
The broken circular segmented surfaces allow solid matter to pass through the gap more easily by providing multiple radial pathways, improving pumping efficiency while maintaining a narrow gap width to minimize lateral forces and friction that could cause breakage.
3Device complexity
If continuous gap-delimiting surfaces are used, then the gap structure is simple, but solid matter adheres to the surfaces and causes clogging
Solution Approach 1:
The gap-delimiting surfaces are divided into multiple radial segments forming a broken circular pattern. This segmentation prevents solid matter adhesion and clogging while adding minimal complexity to the overall gap structure, as the segmented surfaces are integrated into the existing pump chamber design.
Data Source
Figure 1
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Figure 3~5
AI summary
The invention relates to a pump for pumping contaminated liquid comprising solid matter, the pump comprising a hydraulic unit (2), a drive unit (3), and a sealing unit (4), the hydraulic unit having a pump chamber (5) and an impeller (8) that is suspended in a drive shaft (9), said impeller and said drive shaft forming a rotatable unit, the sealing unit comprising a seal housing cover (15) that delimits said pump chamber (5) and that forms a seat for a drive shaft sealing assembly (16), the seal housing cover (15) comprising a first gap-delimiting part (20) and the rotatable unit comprising a second gap-delimiting part (21), which jointly define an axially extending gap (22) situated in the pump chamber. The pump is characterized in that, in each arbitrary radially extending plane taken through said gap (22), the first gap-delimiting part (20) has a broken circular outer gap-delimiting surface (23) at the same time as the second gap-delimiting part (21) has a broken circular inner gap-delimiting surface (24).