Experimental Study on Efficiency Improvement of R410A Scroll Compressor for Air Conditioner

In scroll compressors, an increase in oil flow rate into thecompression chamber improves sealing effectsand decreases refrigerant leakage. On the other hand, as the oil supplies the heat energy, the suction refrigerantis heated and the volumetric efficiency degreases. In the present study, we made an apparatus which suppliesthe oil into the compression chamber while measuring the mass flow rate, thus investigating the relationshipbetween the oil flow rate and the compressor performance. Experimental results indicated that the presentR410A scroll compressor provided higher performance as the oil flow rate decreased under the rated conditionof the air-conditioner. In addition, based on the experimental results, we discussed that the oil flow in thecapillary installed in the orbiting scroll was considered to be a laminar flow, and the volumetric efficiencywould degrease by the effect of a quarter of the oil heat energy.