Investigation of High Pressure Fluid Circuit Gas Flow Dynamics in a Hermetic Compressor Using CFD to Improve Qualitative Flow Understanding

While many approaches have been investigated to identify areas for hermetic compressor efficiency improvements over the past few decades, there remains no conclusive method to gain a holistic view of the system domain to help identify potential target areas to guide product research direction. Hence, modern tools, methods, and problem perspectives are needed to develop new insight into mature problem-sets on a system level to satisfy increasingly stringent efficiency mandates. Reasonably mature simulation tools currently exist that enable scientists and engineers to gain a new perspective into system domains. One such tool is Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The results of the following investigation will show how CFD, coupled with the knowledge of its inherent strengths and weaknesses, can be leveraged to allow scientists and engineers to view mature problem-sets from a qualitative perspective to yield different results by using the high-pressure fluid circuit of a hermetic compression system as a simulation test-bed