Computational Fluid Dynamic Analysis of Swirl Vane Gripperd

The swirl vane gripper is a recently developed robotic handling device that generates swirling air flow to create upward lifting force. The lifting force is used to pick up and hold a workpiece without any contact with the gripper face. It is useful in semiconductor manufacturing industry and food processing industry because of its ability to handle the products without any damage. In present work the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis is carried out in the Ansys software to study the negative pressure that creates the lifting force. In this study the negative pressure distributions are estimated for the various speed of swirl vanes by using Ansys software. And also the lifting forces are established for various gap clearance between the workpiece and the swirl gripper using CFD. The swirl vane gripper is fabricated and an experimental study has been made in a six-axis robot to check the amount of lifting force developed for holding the leather pieces.