Prediction of heat transfer and flow within scroll compressor working chamber

Heat transfer has significant influences on the performance of scroll compressors. In this study, two numerical models were used to investigate the instantaneous heat transfer between the refrigerant gas and the chamber walls in a refrigeration scroll compressor. One model uses the lumped parameter approach employing the First Law of Thermodynamics to predict the bulk properties of the gas in the compressor working chamber. In this model, several existing empirical correlations are used to evaluate the heat transfer and its effect on the compression process of the compressor. The other more comprehensive model attempts to solve the two-dimensional unsteady continuity, momentum and energy equations for the refrigerant gas using the general purpose PHOENICS computational code.Master of Engineering (MPE