Development of High Performance 3D Scroll Compressor

This paper describes the efficiency improvement technology of the 3D scroll compressors and the development of 3D scroll compressor for commercial air-conditioner. 3D scroll, our newly developed profile, can compress refrigerant not only radially but also axially. Therefore, higher compression ratio, higher reliability and larger capacity are obtained by introducing 3D scroll. Since the 3D scroll has steps in the compression chambers, the key point of efficiency improvement of 3D scroll is to minimize the gas leakage at steps. Through cylinder pressure measurements and visualization tests, clearances at steps and the oil content were optimized and gas leakage at steps was reduced. Our newly developed 3D scroll compressor for commercial air-conditioner archived 35% smaller size, 26% lighter weight, 5.5% improvement of efficiency and 6dB reduction of noise compared with the conventional one.