Optimizing the Clearance Fit of a Progressive Cavity Pump for the Thermal Recovery of Petroleum Using Fluid–Structure Thermal Coupling

[Image: see text] It is important to incorporate the effects of fluid–structure thermal coupling and the boundary conditions when calculating the thermal dynamics and response of progressive cavity pumps. This study develops a fluid–structure thermal coupling model of the progressive cavity pump to improve the accuracy of its measured field of deformation and the temperature field of the stator. A function for the macroscopic motion of a rigid body is written in a typical fluid domain, and the user-defined function (UDF) in FLUENT is used to load the boundary of the rotor to realize its planetary motion. Local remeshing is used to update the moving grid, and the viscoelastic hysteretic heat of the stator is treated as the internal source of heat. One-way decoupling is used based on tire slip theory, and heat flux on the surface of the stator is calculated by the ANSYS Parametric Design Language (APDL). The sequential fluid–structure thermal coupling of the progressive cavity pump is calculated by using the ANSYS workbench. A scheme for optimizing the fit clearance of the stator and rotor is given to improve the volumetric efficiency of the progressive cavity pump and prevent the stator from being stuck owing to a large deformation, and the calculations are verified by experiments on volumetric efficiency. The average deviation in the calculated volumetric efficiency was less than 5% compared with the experimental values. The proposed scheme provides a theoretical basis for the optimal design of the progressive cavity pump for the thermal production of petroleum.