Numerical research on the scroll compressor with refrigeration injection

A general model for a scroll compressor with refrigerant injection is established in this paper. The model can be used to predict the macro performance and inner compression process of the injected scroll compressor. A series of experiments are conducted to validate the accuracy of the model. The results show that the model can precisely predict not only the general performance of the compressor but also the inner compression with or without refrigerant injection. Based on the thermodynamic model and the test bench, the injection process of the scroll compressor has been investigated and the thermodynamic essence is revealed. It is found that the refrigerant injection process can be considered as a continual parameter-varying “adiabatic throttling + isobaric mixture” time-varying process.