Influence of water injection atomization on the performance of water-lubricated single screw air compressor

Faculty of Environment and Life, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China

^* Corresponding author: lyn2018@emails.bjut.edu.cn

Abstract

As the whole society attaches great importance to the safety of food and medicine, and hydrogen fuel cell and new energy vehicle industry rises suddenly, people’s requirements for clean compressed air is more and more urgent. Water-lubricated single screw compressor is an ideal choice for providing clean air because of the advantages of balanced force, a long service life, and high efficiency, and the influencing factors of its performance have received more and more attention. This study established a mathematical model of the working process of a water-lubricated single-screw air compressor to study the relationship between its performance and the water injection atomization. The model considered leakage and heat transfer between water and moist air and analysed the influences of droplet diameter and rotation speed on compressor performance. The results showed that water injection atomization can effectively reduce the discharge temperature, make the compression process of the compressor tend to isothermal compression. Under rated conditions, a reduction in the droplet diameter from 0.25 mm to 0.15 mm reduced the discharge temperature of the compressor, improved the volume efficiency, and improved the adiabatic efficiency by 31 K, 2.6%, and 8.2%, respectively.