Improving refrigeration screw compressor performance with optimized rotors

Refrigeration compressors are required to operate within closed or inhabited spaces quietly, reliably and with high efficiency over a long service life. Recent advances in manufacturing techniques of screw compressor vital parts, like rotors and bearings have enabled improvements to be made to them, which were difficult to imagine only a few years ago. These can lead to far better and more affordable screw compressors. To take full advantage of these developments for their use in refrigeration systems, compressor designers need to use improved analytical procedures, which include simultaneous consideration of all the major design variables in order to achieve the best result. Examples of this are given in new designs of high performance refrigeration compressors, described in this paper. These open new horizons in for the application of screw compressors in refrigeration systems.