Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 1-4 July, 2007.
This paper is concerned with the
development of a new energy-saving vacuum
pad using CFD-technique. Nowadays,
application of pneumatic vacuum pads may be
found in many different real industries,
especially in the field of automatic conveyer
system, automatic assembly line, semiconductor
industry as well as silicon wafer factory, etc.
Traditional vacuum pads generally utilize
nozzles to create the effect of vacuum. In this
paper, however, a new idea to generate the effect
of vacuum is proposed by designing a structure
similar to that of an aerostatic bearing. In details,
the air is guided to flow through an optimally
designed restrictor inside the vacuum pad and
flow out through the outlet between the vacuum
pad and the sucked work-piece. Therefore,
according to Bernoulli’s equation, the air
pressure near the center line of the vacuum pad
decreases because of the increased airflow
velocity. Consequently, the effect of vacuum is
generated.
To achieve two preset requirements, that is,
large suction force output and low air
consumption, the commercial CFD-RC software
is utilized to simulate the air flow field and
design the optimal geometry inside the vacuum
pad. Experimental results further prove that the
new vacuum pad with two preset features is
successfully developed and implemented in this
study.
