Effect of Diameter on Performance of Vortex Unit

Vortex unit is a proposed new suction device. It consists of a nozzle, a circular chamber and a skirt. Compressed air is injected into the circular chamber to form a rotating flow. The rotating flow produces a negative pressure inside the circular chamber, just like the center of typhoon. Because of the internal and external pressure difference, vortex unit can produce a suction force. Vortex unit has two characteristics: (1) Vacuum chuck has a limitation on working surfaces, it only works on smooth surfaces. But vortex unit overcomes this defect, vortex unit can work on rough surfaces. (2) Vortex unit has no direct contact with the sucked objects and can be applied to some special occasions such as gripping the semiconductor wafer.Vortex unit's optimized design is important. It has several important structural parameters, the radius of the circular chamber (denoted as R) is one of them. We measured the suction force of vortex unit, and calculated its input energy and found that R increases and the input energy decreases when the suction forces of vortex unit with different R are the same. In other words, In this paper, we will explore the relationship between R and vortex unit by experiment and theory, and achieve the goal of optimizing the vortex unit.