Designs, analyses, and tests of a spiral-grooved turbobooster pump

Abstract

This article shows a spiral-grooved turbobooster pump, which has a momentum transfer-type vacuum pump function, and is capable of operation in a discharge pressure range up to 1000 Pa. Transitional flow pumping speeds are improved by a well-designed midsection element. Pumping performance of this new pump is predicted and examined by both of the computational fluid dynamics method and the direct simulation Monte Carlo method. These two complementary approaches are successfully being used to investigate the whole pumping speed curve from the viscous high-pressure to the molecular low-pressure range. Also, the developed pump is tested on an evaluation system constructed according to JVIS-005 standard. Good agreement between analytical results and experimental data are shown. Furthermore, to achieve a clean, safe, and reliable pumping process, this pump is designed with and operated by an innovative digital magnetic-bearing system.