Influence of the cross-sectional shape and length of the compressible sections on the characteristics of a linear peristaltic pump

Abstract

In the overview part of the work, the most common existing designs of pumps of the peristaltic principle of operation, as well as the main areas of their application, are briefly presented. The main part of the work is devoted to the study of the influence on the operation of a peristaltic pump with a linearly arranged tube of the shape of the cross-section of the tube in the region of the compressible sections, as well as the ratio of the sizes of the release elements periodically compressing the pump tube in the transverse direction. The studies were carried out through numerical experiments in the STAR-CCM + program, which is based on the control volume method. As a result of the carried out calculations, it was found that the use of protrusions on the inner surface of the tube gives a positive effect if the protrusions have a special curvilinear shape with a smooth transition near the inner surface of the tube, and the increase in the generated pressure and feed is greater if the protrusions are present only in the compression region tube with the first squeeze element. In this case, the discharge angle of the pump characteristic changes so that a positive effect is not observed in the region of small values of the generated pressure. The study of the influence of different ratios of the lengths of the compressible sections of the tube on the flow and pressure created by the pump showed that for the incomplete compression of the pump tube investigated in the work, the use of squeeze elements of the same length is favorable. Both for a tube without protrusions and for a tube with protrusions, the use of a second squeeze element of greater or lesser length than the length of the remaining squeeze elements with the same total length of all three compressible sections leads to an increase in leakage when the tube is not fully compressed, and thus reduces the pump flow.