Conference Year
2016
Keywords
oil flooded, scroll compressor, CFD, two phase flow, VOF
Abstract
Liquids have been commonly used in different types of compressors to seal the leakage gaps and to cool the compressed gas in order to increase the efficiency. CFD simulation provides valuable insights to help design engineers to verify, to analyze, and to improve the performance of a compressor. However two phase flow with moving parts and small gaps is a very challenging CFD problem. For compressor simulation, thermal effects and heat transfer are also essential. Therefore simulation of liquid flooded compressors is extremely difficult.  In this paper a full 3D transient CFD model for a generic oil flooded scroll compressor will be described in detail. Volume Of Fluid (VOF) multiphase approach will be used to model gas and liquid phases. Effects of flooded oil will be evaluated by comparing the simulation results for the cases with and without oil. Simulation will also demonstrate that the approaches used in the paper are robust, fast, and user friendly, and can be readily applied to industrial compressor systems.