Development and design of the heat pump vapor degreaser.

摘要

High efficiency Heat Pump Vapor Degreaser (HPVD) technology has recently been enhanced to incorporate modern solvents and to reduce solvent emissions to very low levels. This thesis documents the author's recent innovations in this Glovebox integration and his work at Corpane Industries, Inc. HPVD, which was conceived, and successfully developed by Jim McCord (Corpane Industries, Inc.), is described as part of this document. Original challenges included: (1) creating and implementing a computer program (INLINE) to design equipment that would free engineers to focus on improvements, (2) expanding and modifying the INLINE program to a general purpose Cleaner Design Program (CDP) to generate basic tank drawings, (3) developing a new perspective to reshape these HPVD tank systems for future environmental and technological requirements. New additional challenges include: (4) developing the thermodynamic model of the HPVD operations, (5) developing a theoretical understanding to the fluid mechanics needed for effective HPVD operations and (6) applying this overall understanding to future designs.;The original thesis in 1987 presented a study of the operations in designing, storing, and retrieving custom equipment manufactured by Corpane Industries, Inc. The only consistency in manufacturing such equipment occurred in the method of design. The challenge was creating a computer programming approach to integrate the equipment design, and manufacturing. The programming strategy was based on structured and relational concepts.;The INLINE program (1st Challenge) was written in Fortran IV on a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP11 (16-bit CPU) and proved the method of HPVD design was not a "seat of the pants" process as claimed by one engineer.;The CDP program (2nd Challenge) was written on a DEC MicroVAX II (32-bit CPU) using VAX Fortran incorporating Screen Management Guidelines (SMG) with the plan to use the Graphical Kernel System (GKS) to generate graphics. SMG provided a windowing function for the text based terminals while Fortran provided the logical program flow and GKS provided graphical printouts. Although an attempt at following ANSI standards in terms of Fortran 77 source and GKS routines was made, at times the coding deviated to utilize more structured and advanced features with the consideration of programming for future hardware and software.;The CDP program became unnecessary as the demand for these type systems declined due to the phase-out of CFC cleaning solvents without a timely plug-in cleaning solvent replacement; however, a new more general design awareness was achieved by considering all the possible tank configurations. Over a decade later this knowledge led to a Glovebox integration version of Jim McCord's original design by addressing a decades old problem at NASA (3rd Challenge) that emerged by the transition from predominantly Vapor Degreasing (CFC cleaning) to water based cleaning. The Glovebox HPVD received a US Patent and this invention requires a totally new approach to designing and manufacturing these systems.;This thesis begins with a background on (1) cleaning, (2) traditional VD design, (3) original HPVD design, then (4) a theoretical and (5) thermodynamic description to the HPVD, and finally, (6) development of the HPVD design methodology to augment the engineering function that led to the (7) new Glovebox HPVD developed for NASA. The body of the thesis focuses on the discovery of what is required to make the HPVD operate properly from a mechanical engineering viewpoint while the computer science detail work is included in the appendix and mentioned where appropriate.