Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Sanden International (Singapore) Pte Ltd, 25 Ang Mo Kio Street 65, 569062 Singapore
Thermal & Fluids Division, School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798,
Republic of Singapore
b
h i g h l i g h t s
A novel xed-vane revolving vane compressor has been designed and tested.
The compressor has been tested using air as working uid from 2350 rev/min to 3800 rev/min from pressure ratios 1.5 to 2.4.
The discrepancy between the predicted and the measured mechanical power is below 10.0%.
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 17 April 2013
Accepted 22 September 2013
Available online 2 October 2013
A new compressor mechanism, called xed-vane revolving vane compressor, has been designed, fabricated, instrumented and tested. The compressor design eliminates the pressure differential dependency
of the vane side friction. A compressor prototype has been tested using air as the working uid and
operated at 2350e3800 rev/min with pressure ratios of up to 2.4, starts from the discharge pressure of
1.5 bar with an increment of 0.3 bar, while keeping the suction pressure constant at the atmospheric
pressure. Over the range of the pressure ratios tested, the discrepancy between the predicted and the
measured mechanical power is well below 10.0%. The measured air ow rate is found to be greater than
the prediction when the discharge pressure is lower than 1.8 bar and the reverse is true for higher
discharge pressures.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Compressor
Experimental
Design
1. Introduction
In an attempt to introduce a new highly energy efcient
compressor mechanism, the revolving vane compressor was
introduced in 2006 and a few studies in the areas of friction [7],
leakages [9], valve performance [8], journal bearing design [4],
in-chamber heat transfer [5] and the experimental study [12]
have been carried out. The revolving vane compressor has been
further improved by physically xing the vane onto the driving
component. This design improvement eliminates the dependency of the vane side frictional loss on the pressure difference across the vane. The mechanical efciency of this xed-vane
revolving vane compressor is predictably increased by 2.5% as
compared to the original revolving vane compressor design [6].
208
Nomenclatures
e
Fx
Fy
I
I0
Ir
k
LBr
Pef,lower
Pef,upper
Pf,Br
Pf,ls
Pind
Pind,max
Pind,min
Pvs
R
RBr
Rcc
Rr
Rs
V
Vv
2. Prototype design
209
temperature at the receiver tank (T), the driving shaft speed (u) and
the volume ow rate of the air (Q).
The compressor was driven by a DC electric motor. The
compressor driving shaft is properly aligned and directly coupled to
the motor shaft. A magnetic pick up was placed in the vicinity of the
driving shaft in order to capture its rotational frequency. The power
to the electric motor is supplied by a DC power supply. The DC
power supply has the voltage limit of 30.0 V and the current limit of
3.0 A. The voltage and the current supplied to the electric motor
were recorded by a data acquisition system (DAQ). Based on the
measurements of the voltage and the current, the mechanical power to drive the compressor can be evaluated indirectly based on
the motor performance characteristics.
As referred to Fig. 5, the states of the air in the receiver tank
were recorded by a pressure transducer and a thermocouple
respectively. The discharge pressure for the compressor to work
210
24.980 mm
11.993 mm
12.025 mm
8.018 mm
9.442 mm
0.175 mm
29.899 mm
11.997 mm
12.023 mm
18.988 mm
19.009 mm
viscosity and lubricity. In the tests only the steady state measurements were taken. The compressor was deemed to be working at
the steady state conditions when the compressor body temperature and the reading in the ow meter are stable.
4. Measurements and validations
Fig. 4. The bearing assembly.
Pmech V I I 2 R kI0 u
(1)
1.5
1.8
2.1
2.4
22.0
22.0
26.0
27.0
2.0
2.0
1.0
1.0
The mechanical power at ve different compressor speeds under four different discharge pressures are shown in Fig. 6. It is
observed that the mechanical power to the compressor increases as
the speed increases at constant discharge pressure.
The mechanical power supplied to the compressor represents
the power required to overcome all the losses within the
compressor in order to compress the working uid from the suction
to the discharge pressure. The energy required to accomplish the
induction and the compression process is called indicated power, as
shown by equation (2).
I
Pind
PdV
(2)
211
Pvs hvs
Ir ar
Vv
Rr cosfr fc
(3)
During the operation, the vane is used to drive the rotor into
rotational motion. The normal contact force at the vane side is due
to the rotational inertia of the rotor and its angular acceleration.
The vane side friction coefcient is adopted as 0.15 [11].
Besides the friction loss at the vane side, the friction occurs at
the lower and the upper end faces between the rotor and the cylinder due to the relative velocity difference between the aforementioned two components. The magnitude of the end face
frictions can be written as equations (4) and (5) [3].
Pef;lower
m
1
p u2c e2 R2r uc ur 2 R4r
def
2
(4)
212
Pef;upper
1
m
p e2 u2c R2r u2r R2cc uc ur 2 R4r R4cc
def
2
(5)
"
#
(6)
Pf ;ls 2p4R2s u
(7)
It is noted that except for lip seal friction, the frictional losses in
the compressor prototype are dependent on the lubricant viscosity,
which in turns depends on the lubricant temperature. The estimation of the lubricant viscosity for evaluating the frictional losses
at the bearing and end faces is dependent on the localized temperature. Locally, the frequent rubbing between the components
generates heat and it affects the local lubricant viscosity. The rubbing frequency is taken as the compressor shaft rotational speed.
The compressor shaft rotational speeds conducted in the testing are
from 2350 rev/min to 3800 rev/min. The viscosity value is adjusted
according to the operating speeds. The comparison between the
predicted and the measured mechanical power is shown in Fig. 7.
The maximum discrepancy is found to be at 10%.
The mechanical power components consist of the indicated
power and the aforementioned frictional losses. The breakdown of
the mechanical power into component level at the lowest and the
highest attained speed at each discharge pressure has been summarized in Table 3.
As observed from the table, the friction losses at the lip seal area
and at the bearing sites are the major component of the total frictional losses. The mechanical efciency of this xed-vane revolving
vane compressor prototype range from 14.3% to 22.1% as the
discharge pressure increases from 1.5 bar to 2.4 bar while the speed
increases from 2538 rev/min to 3585 rev/min.
The small value of the mechanical efciency is justiable by
taking a look on the possible energy utilization to compress the air.
The power supplied to compress the air can be deemed as the
product of the mass ow rate and the enthalpy difference between
suction and discharge conditions. The mass ow rate is treated as
ideal where the suction is completely taken and the internal
leakage is neglected. In addition, the value of the enthalpy difference is bounded by lower and upper limits. The lower limit of the
enthalpy difference happens when the air is undergoing adiabatic
Fig. 7. The comparison of predicted and measured discharged mass ow rate (,: theoretical; -: experimental).
213
Table 3
The components breakdown of the mechanical power.
Pdis
1.5 bar
U (rev/min)
2538
3783
2364
3648
3030
3600
3090
3585
Pind (W)
Pind,min (W)
Pind,max (W)
Pvs (W)
Pef (W)
Pls (W)
PBr (W)
hmech (%)
hmech,max (%)
4.9
3.1
10.6
0.12
0.34
15.7
13.2
14.3
26.5
7.9
4.7
15.8
0.41
0.51
23.4
19.9
15.2
26.3
5.8
4.3
9.9
0.10
0.29
15.3
11.4
17.6
26.8
9.5
6.7
15.3
0.37
0.47
23.6
18.5
18.1
26.3
8.9
7.1
12.7
0.21
0.40
20.3
15.4
19.7
25.9
11.1
8.4
15.1
0.36
0.46
24.3
17.9
20.5
26.0
10.7
8.8
12.9
0.22
0.41
21.7
16.0
21.8
25.2
12.4
10.2
15.0
0.35
0.46
25.1
17.7
22.1
25.6
1.8 bar
2.1 bar
2.4 bar
5. Conclusions
The functionality of the xed-vane revolving vane compressor
mechanism has been veried through a smooth running of the
prototype. The compressor operates successfully using air as the
working uid. The compressor operates from 2350 rev/min to
3800 rev/min and attained the pressure ratio of 2.4. The experimental ndings are summarized as follows:
214
Fig. 9. The comparison of predicted and measured discharged mass ow rate (,: theoretical; -: experimental).
to the operating speed. In addition, it is known from the experiment that the leakage can be reduced by adopting an effective
lubrication system, which delivers the lubricant to the leakage
sites to seal off the possible leakage.
The preliminary experiments conducted for the novel xed-vane
revolving vane compressor presented in this paper is the main
objective and the results showed a great condence in its operational
capability. The simpler geometries and the ease for the manufacturing
and dimension control will be benecial to the commercial applications. The design and the test of an open-drive xed-vane revolving
vane compressor for air-conditioning system are being carried out.
Hence, the comparisons to the classic vapor-compression air-conditioning systems which employ other positive-displacement compressors such as reciprocating compressor, rotary vane compressor,
and scroll compressor and the one with novel xed-vane revolving
vane compressor can be examined. The comparisons will be presented from the point of view of coefcient of performance (COP),
mechanical efciency, power consumption and noise. These research
and developments are still on-going and once conclusive results are
obtained, the results will be reported in the next paper in the near
future.
References
[1] H. Hirani, K. Athre, et al., Dynamically loaded nite length journal bearings:
analytical method of solution, J. Tribol. 30 (11) (1999) 844e852.
[2] H.K. Muller, B.S. Nau, Fluid Sealing Technology: Principles and Applications,
Marcel Dekker Inc., New York, 1998.
[3] A. Subiantoro, K.T. Ooi, Analytical study of the endface friction of the revolving
vane mechanism, Int. J. Refrigeration 34 (5) (2011) 1276e1285.
[4] K.M. Tan, K.T. Ooi, Journal bearings design for a novel revolving vane
compressor, Int. J. Refrigeration 34 (1) (2011) 94e104.
[5] K.M. Tan, K.T. Ooi, Heat transfer in compression chamber of a revolving vane
(RV) compressor, Appl. Therm. Eng. 31 (8e9) (2011) 1519e1526.
[6] K.M. Tan, K.T. Ooi, A novel revolving vane compressor with a xed-vane, Int. J.
Refrigeration 34 (8) (2011) 1980e1988.
[7] Y.L. Teh, K.T. Ooi, Theoretical study of a novel refrigeration compressor e Part
I: Design of the revolving vane (RV) compressor and its frictional losses, Int. J.
Refrigeration 32 (5) (2009) 1092e1102.
[8] Y.L. Teh, K.T. Ooi, D. Wibowo Djamari, Theoretical study of a novel refrigeration compressor e Part II: Performance of a rotating discharge valve in the
revolving vane (RV) compressor, Int. J. Refrigeration 32 (5) (2009) 1103e1111.
[9] Y.L. Teh, K.T. Ooi, Theoretical study of a novel refrigeration compressor e Part
III: Leakage loss of the revolving vane (RV) compressor and a comparison with
that of a rolling piston type, Int. J. Refrigeration 32 (5) (2009) 945e952.
[10] T. Yanagisawa, T. Shimizu, Leakage losses with a rolling piston type rotary
compressor. I. Radical clearance on the rolling piston, Int. J. Refrigeration 8 (2)
(1985) 75e84.
[11] T. Yanagisawa, T. Shimizu, Friction losses in rolling piston type rotary compressors, Int. J. Refrigeration 8 (3) (1985) 159e165.
[12] Y.L. Teh, K.T. Ooi, Experimental study of the Revolving Vane (RV) compressor,
Appl. Therm. Eng. 29 (14e15) (2009) 3235e3245.