Modeling of pneumatic dual reciprocating bellows pump with flexible linkage

摘要

Pneumatic dual reciprocating bellows pump has been widely used in chemical transportation due to its good sealing and anticorrosion performances. Nevertheless, the large outlet pulsation limits its performances on precise transportation and control of the fluid. Although the design of employing flexible linkage between the bellows has been proposed as an effective solution for this shortcoming, the design, manufacture, and control of the pump also become much more complicated. This paper presents a mathematical model to formulate the effects of structural, geometric, and control parameters to the output pulsation of pneumatic dual reciprocating bellows pump with flexible linkage. It is a dynamic model unifying several sub-models expressing the pneumatic, hydraulic, and mechanical parts in the pump, respectively. To ensure the accuracy, some special experiments are also employed to identify some key parameters in the model that cannot be determined directly. In addition, finite difference method is employed to solve the nonlinear equations. The model is well verified by comparing its computation results with experimental data. We believe that this study is valuable for guiding the design of pneumatic dual reciprocating bellows pump and optimizing its output pulsation.