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Theoretical and experimental investigation on optimization of a non-contact air conveyor

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Abstract

Air film conveyors equipped with porous pads have been developed to bring the liquid crystal display (LCD) into a non-contact state during transportation process. In this work, a theoretical model including flow property of porous media and Reynolds equation is established within a representative region in order to optimize the design parameters of a partial porous air conveyor. With the theoretical model, an optimization method using nondominated sorting genetic algorithm–II (NSGA-II) is applied for a two-objective optimization to achieve a minimum air consumption and maximum load capacity. Three Pareto-optimal solutions are selected to analyze the influence of each parameter on the characteristics of the air conveyor, and the results indicate that the position of the porous pads has the most significant impact on the performance and of course must be determined with care. Furthermore, experimental results in terms of the supporting force versus gap clearance show that the optimized air conveyor can greatly improve the load capacity over the normal one, indicating that the optimization method is applicable for practical use.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, 212003, China

    Wei Zhong  (钟伟)

  2. Wuxi Pneumatic Technology Research Institute Co. Ltd., Wuxi, 214072, China

    Wei Zhong  (钟伟)

  3. State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power Transmission and Control, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    Xin Li  (黎鑫) & Guo-liang Tao  (陶国良)

  4. Boyan Pneumatic Technology Institute of Ningbo, Fenghua, 315500, China

    Bo Lu  (路波)

  5. Precision and Intelligence Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, 226-8503, Japan

    Toshiharu Kagawa  (香川利春)

Authors
  1. Wei Zhong  (钟伟)
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  2. Xin Li  (黎鑫)
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  3. Guo-liang Tao  (陶国良)
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  4. Bo Lu  (路波)
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  5. Toshiharu Kagawa  (香川利春)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wei Zhong  (钟伟).

Additional information

Foundation item: Project(51205174) supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China; Project(2014M550309) supported by the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China; Project(GZKF-201407) supported by the Open Foundation of the State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power Transmission and Control, China

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Zhong, W., Li, X., Tao, Gl. et al. Theoretical and experimental investigation on optimization of a non-contact air conveyor. J. Cent. South Univ. 23, 353–361 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-016-3080-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-016-3080-6

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