A Numerical Study of Convective Heat Transfer in the Compression Chambers of Scroll Compressors

Convective heat transfer in the compression chambers of scroll compressors affects important quantitie s associated with the compression cycle, such as the volumetric efficiency and the discharge gas temperature. In sp ite of its relevance, heat transfer in scroll compressors has not been sufficiently studied mainly due to difficu lties associated with its geometry. This paper presents a numerical model developed to predict the convective heat tran sfer in the compression chambers of scroll compressors, by appl ying the finite volume method to solve the conserva tion equations for mass, momentum and energy. An equation of state for real gas was also considered to comp lete the system of equations and relate pressure, temperatur e and density along the compression cycle. Due to t he singular geometry of scroll compressors, an algorithm was de veloped to adapt the computational mesh throughout the simulation. The near wall region plays an important role on heat transfer and hence a low Reynolds tur bulence model was adopted in the solution procedure. Result s for convective heat transfer coefficient are comp ared with values returned by correlations commonly adopted in the literature.