Design module for the industry design and development of a novel gearless Wankel-like mixer–pump: The Lau–Wan mixer

What is it about?

It is about designing a rotary mixing device similar in concept to the Wankel Engine. Instead of a three-apex and 2-lobe device which the Wankel engine is, the design specifications call for a two-apex rotating in a one lobe chamber similar to the Cora Pump design.The gear ratio required for the rotor annular gear to the stationary pinion gear is 2:1. Using the equation that generates the epitrochoid and animating the motion of the 2-apex rotor, a simple crank and slide transmission mechanism is found to be a possible alternative to the annular-pinion gears, which can be costly for micro mixer designs. The crank and slide design is easier and cheaper to manufacture - hence the gearless Wankel like mixer - especially at the micro scale. The mixer was tested with two different viscous liquids. The mixing is quite complete and the results obtained are quite similar to that obtained by the use of CFD.

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Why is it important?

There are two important ones: (a) as an education concept - to show students how to start a design, in this case, the design of rotary mixer (b) the gearless concept means it is cheaper and easier to design

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