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Layered Moineau based pump
The geometry of a progressing cavity pump, or screw pump, or Moineau pump, is beautiful and simple in theory. It
consists of an inner (harder) helical rotor and an outer rubber (softer) stator which form a set of small- and fixed-size
cavities in between. The rotor displaces viscous material throughout the system by means of the rotation of the cavities.
The fluid flow is constant and can flow back or forward. The volumetric flow rate is proportional to the rotation rate in
both directions. These progressing cavity pumps have many
application areas including food, oil, etc pumping. However,
these type of pumps can present big challenges when applied in practice to small dimensions (only few centimeters in length)
and at high temperatures (say, higher than 180 Celsius degrees). One novel application for using screw pumps with such
extreme characteristics could found fertile grounds in the rapid production of 3D objects printed directly from
thermoplastic pellets or granules of recycled plastic instead than from filament.
Motivated by these implementation constraints, we sectioned the simplest (2:1) Moineau's progressive cavity pump in several, equally spaced, horizontal layers in order to re-
design an alternative multi-layer pump system simplyfied to
just a few layers that can be easier to build, assemble and clean, and get in practice, a reasonable continuous pumping of
viscous material. We introduce to the YouFab Competition our first simple prototype for this class of new layered screw-like pump.
consists of an inner (harder) helical rotor and an outer rubber (softer) stator which form a set of small- and fixed-size
cavities in between. The rotor displaces viscous material throughout the system by means of the rotation of the cavities.
The fluid flow is constant and can flow back or forward. The volumetric flow rate is proportional to the rotation rate in
both directions. These progressing cavity pumps have many
application areas including food, oil, etc pumping. However,
these type of pumps can present big challenges when applied in practice to small dimensions (only few centimeters in length)
and at high temperatures (say, higher than 180 Celsius degrees). One novel application for using screw pumps with such
extreme characteristics could found fertile grounds in the rapid production of 3D objects printed directly from
thermoplastic pellets or granules of recycled plastic instead than from filament.
Motivated by these implementation constraints, we sectioned the simplest (2:1) Moineau's progressive cavity pump in several, equally spaced, horizontal layers in order to re-
design an alternative multi-layer pump system simplyfied to
just a few layers that can be easier to build, assemble and clean, and get in practice, a reasonable continuous pumping of
viscous material. We introduce to the YouFab Competition our first simple prototype for this class of new layered screw-like pump.
