Flow investigation of a miniature pulsatile pump

• Main Author: Lim, Jun Jing.
• Other Authors: Chan Weng Kong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/49295
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Miniature pumps have many useful applications in the modern world. In this project, the miniature pump of interest is a Reciprocating Ball Pump (RBP) that uses a ball enclosed inside the pump casing to trap liquid and moves it forward on the forward stroke. While experiments had been conducted using a RBP model, this project looked into various ways in which Computational Field Dynamics (CFD) methods could be successfully employed for the analysis and optimisation of the RBP. CFD analysis consists of three phases: GAMBIT mesh generation during the pre-processor phase, computation of flow field using FLUENT in the flow-solving phase, and analysis of numerical data and flow visualisation during the post-processing phase.