A study on two phase flows of linear compressors for the prediction of refrigerant leakage

Abstract

Usage of linear compressors is on the rise due to their high efficiency. In this paper, leakage of a linear compressor has been studied through numerical analysis and experiments. First, nitrogen leakage for a stagnant piston with fixed cylinder pressure as well as for a moving piston with fixed cylinder pressure was analyzed to verify the validity of the two-phase flow analysis model. Next, refrigerant leakage of a linear compressor in operation was finally predicted through 3-dimensional unsteady, two phase flow CFD (Computational fluid dynamics). According to the research results, the numerical analyses for the fixed cylinder pressure models were in good agreement with the experimental results. The refrigerant leakage of the linear compressor in operation mainly occurred through the oil exit and the leakage became negligible after about 0.4s following operation where the leakage became lower than 2.0x10-4 kg/s.