The influence of rotor deflection upon screw compressor performance

The compression process within screw compressors induces large pressure and temperature changes that cause the rotors to deform. To determine this effect, a 3-D numerical method has been developed to calculate flow and deformation simultaneously. This comprises a mathematical procedure to generate a numerical grid for both the solid and fluid domains, in the form of a computer program named SCORG, attached to a commercial CCM software package. The effects of rotor distortion on the compressor performance were thus determined and are presented.