Everything you need to know about screw pumps
November 22, 2019
Screw pumps belong to the family of dry compressing gas transfer pumps. They are positive-displacement pumps that use two screw shaped intermeshing rotors to move gas along the screw’s axis. They are frequently used in industrial vacuum applications, often in combination with roots blowers and as oil-free roughing pumps in high and ultrahigh vacuum systems.
How do screw pumps work?
Screw pumps operate using two counter-rotating screw rotors which are engineered so that they rotate “towards each other”. This traps the gas in the space between the “screws” of their rotors. As the screws rotate, this trapped volume decreases which not only compresses the gas but moves it towards the exhaust.
SCREWLINE (Dry screw pump)
- Rotors
- Motor
- Air cooling and heat exchanger
- Single-sided bearing of the rotors
Mechanical bearings support the rotors at both ends. The cantilever design solution supports the rotors at the high-pressure end and the rotors can be cooled internally. A motor drives the two rotors via a gear. Gear and the bearings are lubricated but separated from the pumping mechanism ('vacuum generator') via shaft seals or labyrinth seals, thus the compression is oil-free. The rotors have no mechanical contact between each other and the pump housing, resulting in zero mechanical wear. To keep the installed electrical power low, modern pumps are driven by an electronic frequency converter and rotate slower at pressures ranges near atmospheric pressure. Some versions use so-called blow-off valves instead to keep the rotating speed constant also at high pressures. Cooling is normally done by water.
The performance of screw pumps
Screw pumps can reach ultimate pressures of ~ 1e-3 mbar. The operating pressure range is 103 to 10-2 mbar. Various sizes with pumping speed ~ 60 - 1200 m³/h are available. The pumping speed in the vacuum range < 10 - 50 mbar can be enhanced by placing a roots blower on top. These combinations, often in one single pump housing, are available up to 9000 m³/h
Advantages & disadvantages of screw pumps
high robustness
high tolerance against water vapor and particles/dust
scales to customer requirements
very high pumping speeds
no contamination of the medium being pumped
frictionless rotation - rotor wear is eliminated
highly efficient due to internal compression
operational costs and maintenance requirements are relatively low
frequency converter operation – easily optimized for process requirements – leads to high energy efficiency
Disadvantages
a gas ballast needed to pump light gasses
worse ultimate pressure and lower pumping speed for light gasses (Helium and Hydrogen) if without gas ballast
cannot be scaled down to small pumping speeds below 50 m³/h; below approx. 100 m³/h multistage roots or scroll pumps are used
Applications of screw vacuum pumps
Screw pumps have become the standard solution in almost every industrial vacuum process. Vacuum furnaces for brazing or sintering, metallurgical systems, even steel degassing plants use the advantage of dust resistance and long service intervals. In food processing, food drying, food packaging and even freeze dryers tend to use oil free screw pumps to avoid the contamination of pump oil by water or debris from the process. Large scale coating like architectural glass coaters use screw pumps as roughing pumps for the high vacuum pumps. Screw pumps also are the ideal choice for regeneration of larger cyropumps.
Screw pumps are today also the standard primary pump in large scale scientific experiments such as big storage rings, gravitational wave detectors or space simulation chambers.
