Performance Investigation of Linear Compressor With One Side Springs

In this paper a linear compressor prototype with a set of cylindrical coil springs connected to one side of the trestle is developed. The initial position of piston head is near to the top dead center and coil springs are on free status. The experiments on the prototype are carried out by compressing air on different working conditions. The experimental results show that the linear compressor with one side springs can take good advantage of the gas springcharacteristics of the compressed work fluid to reduce the stiffness of mechanical spring and the weight of compressor. However the mechanical springs cannot help to constrain the piston bumping the cylinder head. The performance of the linear compressor prototype with one side springs changes with the discharge pressuresensitively. The discharge volume of the prototype on 0.2MPa is only 24.7% of that on 0.6MPa. The highest efficiency of the prototype is about 82.5% on discharge pressure of 0.5MPa and it drops with the decreasing of discharge pressure or discharge volume. On each condition with different discharge pressure or discharge volume, there exists the highest efficiency by changing the frequency. Therefore the linear compressor with one side springs is more suitable for the application that the cooling capacity need to be reduced with the decreasing of condensing temperature