Performance Analysis of Scroll Compressors for optimization

The twin-screw compressor is a positive displacement machine used for compressing gases to moderate pressures. The rapid acceptance of screw compressors in various industries over the past thirty years is due to their relatively high rotational speeds compared to other types of positive displacement machines which make them compact, their ability to maintain high efficiencies over a wide range of operating pressures and flow rates and their long service life and high reliability. The present work is aimed to create different screw compressor profiles in SolidWorks. Generation of 3-D geometry and meshing of those profiles to evaluate performance of screw compressor in FLUENT has been done. Simulation of screw compressor working by using moving reference frame and dynamic mesh model in FLUENT is done. The objective of this study is to understand the leakage flow mechanisms, and quantify the leaking rate through each leakage pathways in the screw compressor. The numerical analysis is conducted using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software commercially available, FLUENT. The Realizable k-e turbulence model is employed because it has shown substantial improvements over the standard k-e model where the flow features include strong streamline curvature, vortices, and rotation. Results show that the highest individual leakage occurs across the male and female rotor tip sealing lines, and the blowhole.