Profiling the Outer Rotor of a Conical Helical Compressor via Kinematic Simulation and Experimental Validation

Conical screw compressors are increasingly used in applications that require quiet operation and reduced dimensions. One of the important problems in the case of these compressors is the profiling of the active elements, which are conical screws, with constant or variable pitch. This problem can be solved using programs that allow for the creation of a virtual solid that represents the trace left by a body during its movement. In this paper, the profiling of the outer rotor of a conical screw compressor, with variable pitch, is pro-posed by numerical modeling of the space swept by the inner rotor while rotating. After obtaining the numerical model, a physical replica of it was made by 3D printing. The obtained part was scanned using an ATOS Core 500 video measurement system. Subsequently, the model obtained by scanning was compared with the numerical model of the rotor. The numerical model was obtained first using a part with known shape and dimensions. Since the helical–conical surface has variable pitch, it is possible to analyze the influence of the helix inclination angle on the modeling accuracy in parallel with the analysis of the contact between the two rotors.