TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractProgressive Cavity Pump (PCP) performance has been traditionally modeled as a composition of Couette flow and Poiseuille flow, represented by pump displacement and internal slip respectively. Pump displacement can be easily calculated from pump components geometry, but calculating internal slip is not a trivial problem. Previous studies have proposed to use Hagen-Poiseuille equation for modeling internal slip flow, assuming a constant interference value. In these studies slippage gap area is not clearly defined, so great results have not been reached.This study introduces a new approach for modeling single lobe PCP performance. Slip flow is modeled as the result of two components, one of them due to the movement of the rotor and the other one due to the differential pressure between cavities, assuming that slippage gap area depends on the stator material. This assumption is based on the analysis of metallic, elastomer and PTFE stator PCP characteristic curves, obtained from experimental data of previous works.The existence of a strong relationship between slippage gap area and differential pressure, related to mechanical properties of stator material, is demonstrated. Thus, internal deformation of stator is identified as the main parameter to be understood before predicting PCP performance. For a polymer stator PCP this relationship approximates to a quadratic form, while in a metallic stator PCP a constant gap area can be assumed.Although the proposed model is not able to fit data for any PCP models, its results agree with the ideas proposed above and documented PCP performance theory. In order to obtain a definitive model, future investigation is needed to improve expressions for calculating friction factor inside the pump and also to define a procedure for obtaining gap area relationships for any type of stator material.

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