Development and analysis a new integrated motor rotary vane compressor

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was to develop and analyse a new rotating sleeve vane rotary compressor and to demonstrate the possibility of integrating the compressor with DC hollow rotor torque motor. The integration of the compressor with DC hollow rotor torque motor completely differs from the existing conventional driven method which is typically driven by a sequence of electrical motor or pulley to rotate the mechanical shaft of a compressor. The novelty of this study is to develop a more compact refrigerant compressor for a modular transport refrigeration and airconditioning systems, which will make the systems to be more competitive in terms of sizing and operating stability. The main objective of the study was to design, develop, test, and evaluate the performance of a novel rotating sleeve of single and multi-vane compressor prototype. The novel rotary-vane design was applied to a new integrated concept of DC hollow rotor torque motor rotary compressor. Theoretical and experimental studies were carried out on the prototype of a single and multi-vane (three- and five-vane) rotating sleeve vane rotary compressor prototypes, each of which was installed on a refrigeration system as experimental test-bed. Each test was carried out to obtain the mechanical and volumetric efficiencies, as the refrigeration plant operated in a complete thermodynamic cycle. During these tests, the prototype was run by an external motor connected to the compressor via a shaft. The results show that the single vane compressor prototype has a similar volumetric efficiency of about 80% with that of rolling piston compressor of equivalent capacity. A double increment in capacity to about 50 cc was observed in the multivane prototype models with the same overall dimension and configuration of the rotating components to that of the single vane. The volumetric efficiency was also comparable of about 70% to an existing multi vane rotary compressor. The DC hollow rotor torque motor integration concept was found to be successful and the idea is technically feasible.