Turbopumps

Turbopumps - the pacesetters among vacuum pumps

Vacuum technology is essential for making many high-tech products used in everyday life. Numerous applications in research and industry, in fact, need a vacuum with an extremely low absolute pressure (high vacuum). Turbopumps have established themselves globally as the technological standard, having acquired their name from their turbine cousins. High-speed rotors with up to 90,000 rpm generate the pressure conditions required for application. This allows a vacuum of up to 10^-11 mbar to be generated in the high and ultra-high vacuum range.

Thanks to the sophisticated rotor design, extremely high pumping speed, critical backing pressure and gas throughput values are achieved as well as very good compression values for light gases.

Pfeiffer Vacuum turbopumps stand for safety

Modern turbopumps attain peripheral speeds of over 400 meters per second. This translates to a correspondingly high kinetic rotor energy which, if the rotor and stator were to touch, would transfer within a fraction of a second to the housing and the pump’s anchor system too. The stability of the outer casing of the pump is thus of vital importance and is tested both theoretically and experimentally. Our turbopumps are certified to UL 61010 and/or Semi S2. Besides the mechanical safety, the certification encompasses fire protection and two-fold protection against excess rotation speed, which Pfeiffer Vacuum has developed together with TÜV Rheinland.

Key customer benefits

Vacuum technology is often a key factor for successfully running production processes from start to finish. The costs incurred by faulty batches or production outages can easily run to millions of euros, depending on the application. This makes it all the more important to use components that provide maximum reliability. Today, it is not uncommon for turbopumps to reach an operating lifetime of more than 100,000 hours. During this time, the pump should result in as few scheduled interruptions as possible for maintenance or service work. Coupled with the fact that oil and bearing changes can be carried out on site, this results in maximum uptime. The turbopumps' integrated electronic drive unit significantly reduces cabling costs. State-of-the-art drive technology minimizes energy consumption while at the same time offering versatile control options. The IP 54 protection class design makes these pumps supremely suitable for industrial environments. Their compact design makes for easy integration even where space is at a premium. To minimize costs, there are various electronic drive units to choose from for each pump size. Even the weight factor has been subjected to scrutiny: a turbopump with a pumping speed of 250 liters per second weighs in at a mere 6 kilogrammes. The wide range of uses for Pfeiffer Vacuum turbopumps includes not only analytical, vacuum process and semiconductor technology but also coating, research and development and industrial applications.

Applications

In the production of many products of everyday life and in many areas of engineering research, vacuum technology plays a decisive role. Here the turbopump is of decisive importance in providing extremely pure process conditions.
 

Examples for applications can be found in many different areas:

• Analytics (mass spectrometry, electron microscopy)
• Semiconductor industry (electronic components, integrated circuits (ICs), solar cells)
• Optical/glass industry (heat protection, anti-reflection, reflection, optical filter coatings)
• Coating technology (surface protection, decorative coatings, displays, screens)
• Vacuum metallurgy (vacuum soldering, vacuum sintering, vacuum alloys, vacuum furnaces)
• Leak detection (vacuum systems, vehicle fuel tanks, airbag cartridges, packages)
• Research facilities (nuclear particle physics, fusion research, Laser applications)
• Lamp industry (lamp production)