Effect of Design Parameters on Oil-Flooded Screw Compressor Performance

The performance of oil-flooded screw comp ressors depends on a large number of design paramet ers such as rotor profile, number of rotor lobes, rotor L/D ratio, wrap angle, geometrical clearance s, quantity and location of oil injection, discharge port size and tip speed. Knowledge of the effect of these parameters can help a designer to select the best performing machine for a given application. This paper systematically examines the effect of sev eral of the above parameters on compressor size and performance for a given displacement. Proprietary com puter programs (1,2) are used to calculate the geom etrical characteristics of the rotors and compressor p erformance. Results show that the performance can be c onsiderably improved by proper selection of design parameters. Several plots showing the relationship be tween these parameters and compressor size and perfo rmance are presented that could be very valuable to a designer.