Slap Behavior of Oldham Ring Mechanism for Scroll Compressors and its Improvement Measures using Auxiliary Crank Mechanism

Abstract

In air-conditioning and refrigeration scroll compressors, two identical scrolls form a series of crescent shaped compression chambers. For gas compression, one of the scroll is fixed and the other undergoes an orbital motion without rotation. To realize the orbital motion, the Oldham ring is prevalently used in most scroll compressors. However, Oldham ring may cause a vibration problem known as slap due to its reciprocating motion. The Oldham ring slap not only causes vibration and noise, but may also causes the serious troubles, so it cannot be ignored especially when developing large-capacity (high-speed operation/ large sized) scroll compressors. The final target of the present study is to develop a prototype of super-large scroll compressor with perfect balance operation. For this purpose, in this research, the vibration were measured by the orbiting models which have the Oldham ring and the 3 auxiliary cranks, respectively. It was confirmed that a well-balanced orbiting motion is possible by using the 3 auxiliary crank mechanism.