Scroll compressor

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Mechanism of a scroll pump; here two archimedean

spirals
Operation of a scroll compressor

A scroll compressor (also called spiral

compressor, scroll pump and scroll
vacuum pump) is a device for
compressing air or refrigerant. It is used in
air conditioning equipment, as an
automobile supercharger (where it is
known as a scroll-type supercharger) and
as a vacuum pump. Many residential
central heat pump and air conditioning
systems and a few automotive air
conditioning systems employ a scroll
compressor instead of the more traditional
rotary, reciprocating, and wobble-plate
compressors.

A scroll compressor operating in reverse is

known as a scroll expander, and can be
used to generate mechanical work from
the expansion of a fluid, compressed air or
gas.

History
Léon Creux first patented a scroll
compressor in 1905 in France and the US
(Patent number 801182).[1] Creux invented
the compressor as a rotary steam engine
concept, but the metal casting technology
of the period was not sufficiently
advanced to construct a working
prototype, since a scroll compressor
demands very tight tolerances to function
effectively. The first practical scroll
compressors did not appear on the market
until after World War II, when higher-
precision machine tools enabled their
construction. They were not commercially
produced for air conditioning until the
early 1980s.[2]

Design
A scroll compressor uses two interleaving
scrolls to pump, compress or pressurize
fluids such as liquids and gases. The vane
geometry may be involute, Archimedean
spiral, or hybrid curves.[3][4][5][6][7]

Often, one of the scrolls is fixed, while the

other orbits eccentrically without rotating,
thereby trapping and pumping or
compressing pockets of fluid between the
scrolls. Another method for producing the
compression motion is co-rotating the
scrolls, in synchronous motion, but with
offset centers of rotation. The relative
motion is the same as if one were orbiting.
Another variation is with flexible (layflat)
tubing where the archimedean spiral acts
as a peristaltic pump, which operates on
much the same principle as a toothpaste
tube. They have casings filled with
lubricant to prevent abrasion of the
exterior of the pump tube and to aid in the
dissipation of heat, and use reinforced
tubes, often called 'hoses'. This class of
pump is often called a 'hose pumper'.
Since there are no moving parts in contact
with the fluid, peristaltic pumps are
inexpensive to manufacture. Their lack of
valves, seals and glands makes them
comparatively inexpensive to maintain,
and the hose or tube is a low-cost
maintenance item compared to other
pump types.

Applications
Air conditioner compressor
Vacuum pump
Superchargers for automobile
applications, e.g. Volkswagen's G-Lader

Engineering comparison to
other pumps

Scroll compressor
Scroll compressor

These devices are known for operating

more smoothly, quietly, and reliably than
conventional compressors in some
applications.[8] Unlike pistons, the orbiting
scroll’s mass can be perfectly
counterbalanced, with simple masses, to
minimize vibration. (An orbiting scroll
cannot be balanced if Oldham coupling is
used.) The scroll’s gas processes are more
continuous. Additionally, a lack of dead
space gives an increased volumetric
efficiency.

Rotations and pulse flow

 

The compression process occurs over

approximately 2 to 2½ rotations of the
crankshaft, compared to one rotation for
rotary compressors, and one-half rotation
for reciprocating compressors. The scroll
discharge and suction processes occur for
a full rotation, compared to less than a
half-rotation for the reciprocating suction
process, and less than a quarter-rotation
for the reciprocating discharge process.
Reciprocating compressor have multiple
cylinders (typically, anywhere from two to
six), while scroll compressors only have
one compression element. The presence
of multiple cylinders in reciprocating
compressors reduces suction and
discharge pulsations. Therefore, it is
difficult to state whether scroll
compressors have lower pulsation levels
than reciprocating compressors as has
often been claimed by some suppliers of
scroll compressors. The more steady flow
yields lower gas pulsations, lower sound
and lower vibration of attached piping,
while having no influence on the
compressor operating efficiency.
Valves

Scroll compressors never have a suction

valve, but depending on the application
may or may not have a discharge valve.
The use of a dynamic discharge valve is
more prominent in high pressure ratio
applications, typical of refrigeration.
Typically, an air-conditioning scroll does
not have a dynamic discharge valve. The
use of a dynamic discharge valve
improves scroll compressor efficiency
over a wide range of operating conditions,
when the operating pressure ratio is well
above the built-in pressure ratio of the
compressors. If the compressor is
designed to operate near a single
operating point, then the scroll
compressor can actually gain efficiency
around this point if there is no dynamic
discharge valve present (since there are
additional discharge flow losses
associated with the presence of the
discharge valve as well as discharge ports
tend to be smaller when the discharge is
present).[9][10]

Efficiency

The isentropic efficiency of scroll

compressors is slightly higher than that of
a typical reciprocating compressor when
the compressor is designed to operate
near one selected rating point. The scroll
compressors are more efficient in this
case because they do not have a dynamic
discharge valve that introduces additional
throttling losses. However, the efficiency
of a scroll compressor that does not have
a discharge valve begins to decrease as
compared to the reciprocating compressor
at higher pressure ratio operation. This is a
result of under-compression losses that
occur at high pressure ratio operation of
the positive displacement compressors
that do not have a dynamic discharge
valve.
The scroll compression process is nearly
100% volumetrically efficient in pumping
the trapped fluid. The suction process
creates its own volume, separate from the
compression and discharge processes
further inside. By comparison,
reciprocating compressors leave a small
amount of compressed gas in the cylinder,
because it is not practical for the piston to
touch the head or valve plate. That
remnant gas from the last cycle then
occupies space intended for suction gas.
The reduction in capacity (i.e. volumetric
efficiency) depends on the suction and
discharge pressures with greater
reductions occurring at higher ratios of
discharge to suction pressures.

Reliability
Scroll compressors have fewer moving
parts than reciprocating compressors
which, theoretically, should improve
reliability. According to Emerson Climate
Technologies, manufacturer of Copeland
scroll compressors, scroll compressors
have 70 percent fewer moving parts than
conventional reciprocating
compressors.[11]

In 2006 a major manufacturer of food

service equipment, Stoelting, chose to
change the design of one of their soft
serve ice cream machines from
reciprocating to scroll compressor. They
found through testing that the scroll
compressor design delivered better
reliability and energy efficiency in
operation.[12]

Size

Scroll compressors tend to be very

compact and smooth running and so do
not require spring suspension. This allows
them to have very small shell enclosures
which reduces overall cost but also results
in smaller free volume. This is a weakness
in terms of liquid handling. Their
corresponding strength is in the lack of
suction valves which moves the most
probable point of failure to the drive
system which may be made somewhat
stronger. Thus the scroll mechanism is
itself more tolerant of liquid ingestion but
at the same time is more prone to
experience it in operation. The small size
and quiet operation of a scroll compressor
allow for the unit to be built into high
power density computers, like IBM
mainframes. Scroll compressors also
simplify the piping design, since they
require no external connection for the
primary coolant.
 Partial loading
Until recently, a powered scroll
compressor could only operate at full
capacity. Modulation of the capacity was
accomplished outside the scroll set. In
order to achieve part-loads, engineers
would bypass refrigerant from
intermediate compression pocket back to
suction, vary motor speed, or provide
multiple compressors and stage them on
and off in sequence. Each of these
methods has drawbacks:

Bypass short-circuits the normal

refrigeration cycle and allows some of
the partially compressed gas to return to
the compressor suction without doing
any useful work. This practice reduces
overall system efficiency.
A two-speed motor requires more
electrical connections and switching,
adding cost, and may have to stop to
switch.
A variable speed motor requires an
additional device to supply electrical
power throughout the desired frequency
range. Also variable frequency drive
associated with variable speed
compressor has its own electrical
losses, and is a source of additional
 significant cost and often is an
additional reliability concern.
Compressor cycling requires more
compressors and can be costly. In
addition, some compressors in the
system may have to be very small in
order to control process temperature
accurately.

Recently, scroll compressors have been

manufactured that provide part-load
capacity within a single compressor.
These compressors change capacity while
running.

Reciprocating compressors often have

better unloading capabilities than scroll
compressors. Reciprocating compressors
operate efficiently in unloaded mode when
flow to some of the cylinders is completely
cut off by internal solenoid valves. Two-
stage reciprocating compressors are also
well suited for vapor injection (or what
may be called economized operation) when
partially expanded flow is injected
between the first and second compression
stages for increased capacity and
improved efficiency. While scroll
compressors can also rely on vapor
injection to vary the capacity, their vapor
injection operation is not as efficient as for
the case of reciprocating compressors.
This inefficiency is caused by continuously
changing volume of the scroll compressor
compression pocket during the vapor
injection process. As the volume is
continuously being changed the pressure
within the compression pocket is also
continuously changing which adds
inefficiency to the vapor injection process.
In case of a two-stage reciprocating
compressor the vapor injection takes
place between the two stages, where there
is no changing volume. Both scroll and
reciprocating compressors can be
unloaded from mid-stage compression,
however reciprocating compressors are
also more efficient for this mode of
unloading than scroll compressors,
because the unloaded port dimensions in
case of scroll is limited by the internal port
size, which would not be the case for a
reciprocating compressor where unloading
again occurs from between the two
stages.

Emerson manufactures a scroll

compressor that is capable of varying the
refrigerant flow as per requirement.
Instead of fixing the scrolls together
permanently, the scrolls are allowed to
move apart periodically. As the scrolls
move apart, the motor continues to turn
but the scrolls lose the ability to compress
refrigerant, thus motor power is reduced
when the scroll compressor is not
pumping. By alternating the two different
working states: the loaded state and the
unloaded state. A solenoid contracts and
expands the rotating scroll and/or the
fixed scroll, using axial compliance. The
controller modifies the load time, and the
unload time, matching the capacity of the
compressor to the load requested. This
type of scroll compressors while offering
variable capacity control, normally down to
20% of the full flow, can suffer from a
significant loss of efficiency especially
toward the lower range of the capacity
control.
 See also
Vacuum pump
Gas compressor
Pump
Compressed air battery

References
1. US 801182 , Creux, Léon, "Rotary Engine"
2. David T. Gerken; John L. Calhoun (March
2000). "Design Review of Cast Aluminum
Scroll Compressor Components" . SAE
2000 World Congress. SAE International.
Retrieved 2007-02-21.
3. US 4216661 , Tojo, Kenji, "Scroll
Compressor With Means For End Plate Bias
And Cooled Gas Return To Sealed
Compressor Spaces"
4. US 4522575 , Tischer, J. & R Utter, "Scroll
Machine Using Discharge Pressure For
Axial Sealing"
5. US 4767293 , Caillat, J.; R. Weatherston &
J Bush, "Scroll-Type Machine With Axially
Compliant Mounting"
6. US 4875838 , Richardson, Jr., Hubert,
"Scroll Compressor With Orbiting Scroll
Member Biased By Oil Pressure"
7. US 4834633 , Etemad, S.; D. Yannascoli &
M. Hatzikazakis, "Scroll Machine With
Wraps Of Different Thicknesses"
8. "HVAC Compressor" . Powered by The
People Resources Company. July 2010.
Retrieved 2010-07-21.
9. Jim Wheeler (November 1988). "Scroll
Compressors: The Inside Story".
Contracting Business. Penton Media Inc:
36.
10. James W. Bush; John P. Elson (July
1988). "Scroll Compressor Design Criteria
for Residential Air Conditioning and Heat
Pump Applications". Proceedings of the
1988 International Compressor Engineering
Conference. 1: 83–92.
11. "Scroll Compressors: Design Benefits" .
Emerson Climate Technologies. Retrieved
2013-01-11.
12. Jill Russell (February 2006).
"Commercial Foodservice Equipment, A
Continuous Cool" . Appliance Magazine.
Retrieved 2007-01-10.

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related
 
to Scroll compressor.

Copeland Compressors 111 , video

showing how the scroll compressor
works