Rotary Vane Pump

The second half of the class was spent redesigning the vane pump for different use cases. My team was assigned a pump that would be used in an aquarium to pump filtered sea water. The biggest issues we had to consider were biocompatibility and the corrosive environment, which would affect our material choice, and the highly inefficient duty cycle where the pump would turn on for ten minutes and then off for ten minutes. 

We solved the duty cycle problem by having a recirculation system act as the "off" part of the cycle instead of constantly starting and stopping the pump. In the assembly to the right, the recirculation system is shown in blue. Choosing materials took a few iterations. Because the pump was intended for use in an aquarium, we could not use heavy metals such as Copper or Zinc which are toxic to fish. This immediately ruled out brass, bronze, and galvanized metals as material options. Using Granta, we decided on stainless steel for its resistance to corrosion and PEEK to reduce galling between the steel components. 

In addition to designing the pump, we also had to plan how it would be manufactured and give a cost estimate. I used aPriori to compare costs for different manufacturing possibilities for the shaft, rotor, vanes, gaskets, and spacers. Relevant slides from the final presentation are shown below.