Research on scroll refrigeration compressor with external cooling

The working process of a scroll refrigeration compressor with special external cooling structure was studied. With the structure, the cooling fluid can flow into the prototype head and cool the compression chamber effectively. A thermodynamic model was established to simulate the scroll compressor with external cooling. The prototype was fabricated and the cooling water loop was built. Then the prototype was tested with and without the water cooling. The results show that the water cooling can improve the performance of the compressor significantly. Compared with the operation condition without water cooling, the power input and the discharge temperature decrease by 11.9% and 36%, respectively, the cooling capacity and the volumetric efficiency increase by 11% and 12.7% respectively, and the system COP (coefficient of performance) increases by 26.2% when the inlet water temperature is 25°C. For the compressor with special external cooling structure, when the inlet water temperature decreases from 55°C to 15°C, the COP of the system increases by about 1.5%, but the discharge temperature drops from 86°C to 64°C and the heat transfer between the water and the compressor rises from 1261 W to 2507 W. The simulation results agree well with the experimental data.