Performance Analysis of Refrigerant Centrifugal Compressor

In this work, a performance analysis of the compression cycle of a centrifugal compressor for domestic refrigeration was carried out. A numerical simulation model of a centrifugal compressor has been developed by using MATLAB Simulink R2009a. An advantage of numerical simulation model of a centrifugal compressor is for the design, development, improvement and optimization of the elements constituting the compressor circuit. The actual working condition of a centrifugal compressor, different losses such as in incidence loss, friction loss, pressure drop, leakage losses etc. is also incorporated in the simulation model of the compressor. Result presented show the influence of different aspects (speed, geometry, working conditions) on the basis of meaningful non-dimensional parameters, which describe the compressor behavior. The refrigerants taken for the analysis in this paper is R134a, but any refrigerants would be considered for the analysis. The idea of this paper is to give a better understanding of the performance behavior under different aspects to improve the design of these equipment.