Compressor with Turning-Paired Vane and Piston

With the aim of developing a method for reducing energy consumption of room air conditioners, we address a higher-efficiency design of the rotary compressor currently most used worldwide. We focused on a new rotary compressor equipped with a mechanism to restrict the rolling motion of the piston, and performed a dynamics analysis. The new rotary compressor has a small pillar at the tip of the vane and constitutes a turning-pair of the vane and the piston, which limits the rolling motion of the piston. By limiting piston rotation, heat transfer to the suction process from the compression chamber will be suppressed, and we can expect higher compression efficiency. Before investigating the compression efficiency, we performed a dynamics analysis of this new rotary compressor and examined the forces and dynamic behavior of its components, as well as the mechanical efficiency of the compressor. We realized the following results: First, we clarified the contact point between the vane tip and the piston in the turning-pair by considering the equilibrium of forces and moments acting on the vane; second, by reducing the vane tip radius, the friction loss related to the vane is reduced, and the mechanical efficiency is improved; and third, the new rotary compressor has less vane tip friction loss and, on the other hand, slightly higher friction loss between the vane side and the cylinder compared with the rolling-piston rotary compressor. Consequently, the new rotary compressor would have a slightly higher mechanical efficiency.