Development of a micropump composed of three gears with Logix tooth profiles fabricated by micromilling technology

Abstract

Sustainability is a growing interest for industry to integrating and assessing social, environmental, and economic objectives. Involute gear and single-pump feed technology are difficult to satisfy the requirements of sustainability for high-homogeneous medium and low-loss situations. To improve the relative displacement and reduce the volume of the pump, an innovative three-gear micropump was designed. The gears were patterned with Logix tooth profiles which have lower undercutting tendency and are easy to design with a reduced number of teeth. The double-pump confluence technology was used to reduce the flow pulsation based on phase compensation. In this paper, the structural parameters of Logix gear were first calculated through mathematical analysis. Then, a micropump composed of three Logix gears was designed based on the selected parameters and double-pump confluence technology. The Logix gear was manufactured by micromilling experiments, and the three-gear pump was assembled. At last, a pressure fluctuation test platform was implemented to investigate the fluctuation of the three-gear pump and the transmission noise. Results showed that the displacement of the three-gear micropump was doubled compared with the conventional involute gear pump, with 50% flow pulsation reduction. The transmission noise of the Logix gear pump was also reduced. The outcome of this research will contribute to the development of simplified, safer and anti-fuel-burning gear pump systems, and environment-friendly and sustainable manufacturing of such systems.