2D transient and heat transfer analysis of a coupled vane compressor

Abstract

The Coupled Vane Compressor (CVC) is a compact compressor that aims to reduce the amount of material used during manufacturing. To study the feasibility and performance of the CVC, the compressor is simulated in a 2D simulation using a numerical computational code ANSYS Fluent. Updated techniques such as the overset mesh method, courant number, and inflation mesh layer help to capture the flow details within the CVC to a high level of accuracy. Through simulations, data for pressure, velocity, temperature, density, mass flow rate, and total heat transfer rate at varying wall and outlet temperature are obtained. It was concluded that as operating temperature increase, an increase in velocity and total heat transfer rate was observed. On the other hand, the increase of operating temperature leads to a decrease in density and mass flow rate. Overall, the results from this transient 2D simulation opens more opportunities for subsequent 3D simulations to better capture real-life results of the CVC.