Design and Internal Flow Study Using CFD of an Elliptic Vortex Gripper with Variable Geometry for Polyethylene Bag Packaging

This work presents a study of the internal flow in various elliptic vortex grippers designed to generate an air vortex, applying the operating principle of conventional vortex grippers but adapted to non-circular shapes. The study and design focus on a specific application in the counting and packaging process of folded polyethylene bags, with the aim of improving production efficiency without compromising the integrity of the packages or the bags and reducing count errors. Initially, a simplified vortex flow model proposed by a previous author is used to determine the basic circular geometry of the nozzle. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are then employed to investigate how the pressure distribution changes in the elliptic nozzles, which maintain the same area as the initial circular nozzle. This is done by varying the ratio between the major and minor diameters, and adjusting the position of the air inlet, to identify the most efficient configuration in terms of achieving the lowest pressure and optimizing the pressure drop distribution along the major axis. The results guide the design towards an efficient and adaptable solution tailored to the specific requirements of vacuum gripping applications.