Numerical analysis on effects of vane number variations on performance of a vane pump with various rotational speeds

The vane pumps use in many areas of transferring medium and low viscosity liquids commonly. Basically, the vane pump composed of three main parts. These are stator, rotor and vanes. Stator can be defined as the pump body. Rotor is placed inside of the pump housing. Vanes are located in the channel opened onto the rotor. There is a distance between the stator axis and the rotor axis. The result of the rotational movement, vanes are thrown outward to the inner surface of the stator under the influence of centrifugal force. Thus, the vanes are swept a volume into the pump. Although the operating principle may seem simple, there are many factors affecting the performance of the pump. Operation of the pump is directly related to the rotational motion of the rotor. Because the sealing and friction force will occur between the vane tips and the inner surfaces of stator is a result of rotational movement. The important variable that affects the flow rate of the pump is rotational speed. Flow rate, fluid velocity and internal pressure are directly related to the rotational speed. The other parameter that can affect the internal pressure and velocity is the number of vanes. In this study, the effects of the rotational speed and the number of vanes on the flow characteristics are investigated. CFD analyses of a vane pump to be used in automobile steering system have been made with Ansys Fluent 14.5. The models were analized transient and used UDF codes. UDF is a function that we program that can be dynamically loaded with the Fluent solver to enhance the standard features of the code. Defining the rotational motion of the pump is made in this way. Different rotational speeds and various vane numbers of analyses were performed and the results are discussed.