Thermal Analysis of a Hermetic Reciprocating Compressor Using Numerical Methods

Comprehensive knowledge about the heat transfer mechanisms and the temperature field inside hermetic compressors is very important for the thermal management and thus their performance. A numerical model to predict the temperature field in a hermetic reciprocating compressor for household refrigeration appliances is presented in this work. The model combines a high resolution three-dimensional heat conduction formulation of the compressor’s solid parts, a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach for the gas line domain and lumped formulations of the shell gas and the lubrication oil. Heat transfer coefficients are determined by applying CFD to the gas line side and correlations from the literature on the shell gas and oil side, respectively. The valve in the gas line simulation is modelled as a parallel moving flat plate. By means of an iterative loop the temperature field of the solid parts acts as boundary condition for the CFD calculation of the gas line which returns a cycle averaged quantity of heat to the solid parts. Using an iteration method which is based on the temperature deviation between two iteration steps, the total number of iterations and consequently the computational time can be reduced. The loop is continued until a steady-state temperature field is obtained. Calculated temperatures of the solid parts are verified against temperature measurements of a calorimeter test bench. The numerical results show reasonable agreement with the measured data.