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PISTON LUBRICATION IN RECIPROCATING COMPRESSORS. ALT. Prata* ABSTRACT. JR. S, Fernandes Piston dynamics plays a fundamental role in two exitical processes related to hid Depattment of Mechanical reciprocal rn ‘ow in reciprocating compressors. The firs i the refrigerant leakage through the Engineering J raalcearane which may case considerable laste pumping eto of the Federal Universiy of Santa J compressor The second process the viscous fton associed wah bc Catarina [J fin the radial elarance;cerainy a significa ator the compressor ene) {$8040.900Ftorianéplis.SC- J consumion. Inthe presen conto 2 numeri simulation of te piston BRAZIL ff movement ise the elindr of» reviprocsing compressa is pericmed The voice: (55)48-2345166/tax-35) J compresor considered er ica small hermetic sompussor employed in Jomeste refrigerators. For the problem formulation bot the axial and the radial piston ‘olion is considered. In operation, the piston moves up and down along the axis of the cylinder, but the radial oscillatory motion inthe eykiner bore, despite heing usually smal, plays avery important role on the compressor performance and reliability. The compromise between sealing ofthe gas leakage teaugh the piston compress Meet sini cearance andi incon ves requis tale anys hoy Brazilian Compressor Industry - ‘motion for a good design. The forces acting on the piston are the hydrodynamic EMBRACO force duet the pressure build up in the ol film (lubrication effects), the forse due '89219-901 Joinville, SC BRAZIL tothe connecting rod, te viscous force assocared withthe relative motion between the piston and oil, andthe force exerted by the gas onthe top ofthe piston. All corresponding moments are also included in the peoblem formulation of the piston dynamics, in order fo determine the piston trajectory, velocity and acceleration at cach time step. The hydrodynamie force is obtained from the integration of the ‘pressure distribution on the piston skirt, which, in turn is determined rom a finite ‘volume solution ofthe time dependent equation that governs the ol Now, A Newton Raphson procedure was employed in solving the equaons of he piston dynamics, ‘The results explored te effects of some design parameters and operating conditions ‘onthe stability ofthe piston, its sealing performance and fiction losses. Emphasis was placed on investigating the influence of the pin location, radial clearance and oi Viscosity on the piston dynamics. The complexity of the piston movement in reciprocating compressors was demonstrated and the detailed mel presented ean be employed as an useful too for engineering design, 482341519 e-mail prata@nrva usc br INTRODUCTION th The forces scting ona piston as it goes up and down in ——- a reciprocating engine are the force due to the compressed gas acting on the top ofthe piston, the connecting rod force, the normal force due tothe hydrodynamic pressure developed in the oil fim between the piston and cylinder bore, the force resulting from the piston inertia and the friction force. Those forces and the corresponding moments due {0 the hydrodynamic and the fiction forces are represented in figute 1, As a result of those unbalanced foes, in addition to the piston movement up and down small translations and rotations can occur. It has long been recognized that these oscillatory Fig. - Force and moments acting ona piston * Comresponding autor 56 Engenharia Térmica,n. 1, 2001, p. 58 - 63 important (© engine performance and reliability. Therefore, all the major concern in designing those systems, such as gas leakage. fretional power loss. noise and anti-war life, are significantly related to the mutual dependence ‘between the piston dynamics and the lubrication, In small reciprocating compressors employed in domestic refrigerators, extremely low friction oss is required and ringless piston are tion between the piston commonly used to eliminate the f skirt and cylinder wal sealing of the pressure differential across the piston skirt is ‘biained only by the smal radial clearance between piston and cylinder. A compromise then has to be achieved between a radial clearance that is small enough to prevent gas leakage and large enough to avoid significant friction Toss, To fully benefit from lower friction and minimum gas leakage in ringless piston, any contact between piston and eylinder wall must be prevented. Because ofthe freedom of lateral motion in ingless piston compressors, a smal and stable reciprocating motion of {he piston should be ensured by a thin fluid film besween piston and cylinder maintained atalltimes. Lubrication thus plays an {important role in performing a complete dynamic analysis of reciprocating pistons. Several works availabe in the open literature have dealt ‘ith the ubrication characteristies between piston and cylinder {in reciprocating motion. For a literature review before the eighties, on both theoretical and experimental attempts to explore piston lubrication, reference is made to Lit al. (1983), Those authors themselves have shown through an analytical ‘model that piston skit fiction can be significantly imereased if ‘he wrists is tocated in an unfavorable position, \ brief survey. focusing on those contributions relevant tothe present investigation will now be presented. ‘A numerical study on piston slap in diesel engines was performed by Suzuki etal. (1987) who explored the effects of arbitrary skint surfaces and pin eccentricity in the piston dynamics, Zhu etal. (1982, 1993) numerically investigated piston _motion, lubrication and frietion in mixed lubrication taking into account effects of surface waviness, roughness, surface profile, bulk elastic deformation and thermal distortion of both piston skiet ancl eylinder bore. The proposed model ws applied toa four stroke automotive engine showing that good fnydrodynamie lubrication ean minimize the possibility and severeness of piston impact against the cylinder bore and reduce the frictional loss, Inasequene of three papers, Gommed and Eision (1993, 1994) and Etsion and Gommed (1995) presented a mathematical ‘model for analyzing the dynamics of gas lubricated ringless pistons. A relatively large size helium cryocooler was investigated and it was shown that although the cylinder piston shape is commonly used for ringless piston applications, {his is not the best choice for an optimum design as far as piston sahility and sealing performance are concerned. Other piston shapes were explored and an improved des ‘obtained with noncylindieal profiles. ‘Theoretical and experimental results were obtained by Yamaguchi (1994) for two piston-eylinder assemblies. One ‘operating inthe standard mode, with hydrodynamic lubrication, and other operating wth ol being injected in the radial clearance between piston and cylinder. It was shown for low erankshaft velocities, that the hydrostatic piston can operate with reduced In those ri Engenharia Térmica, 1, 2001, p. 56 - 83 PRATA, A. T; Fernandes, J. RS. Piston lubrication... friction and same oil leakage as the hydrodynamic piston as long.as the radial clearance is made smal. Lee (1994) proposed a piston with tilted tp for an internal ‘combustion engine that is able to employ the combustion gas force in favor of the piston stability: The elastohydrodynamic lubrication was investigated by Dursunkaya et al. (1994) fora diesel engine. It was shown tha surface deformation can play 8 significant role in the piston secondary’ motion, None of the works previously cited dealt with piston lubrication in reciprocating compressors, In this regard the ‘main objective ofthe present work is 10 perform, forthe fist lime, a dynamic analysis for the thin fluid film between piston and cylinder in presence of oscillatory secondary motion ‘occurring in small refrigerating compressors. The complete set ‘of equations deseribing both piston and connecting rod motion are formulated. ‘Those equations allow the prediction of the spatial and time varying radial clearance. required for the Iubrication equation PROBLEM FORMULATION Atypical piston-eylinder system encountered in smat! Feciprocating compressors is depicted in figure 2. ‘The piston, ‘with radius R and Jeng Lis driven ina reciprocating motion by the action ofthe erankshaft and connecting rd. The eycle sfarts at the bottom dead center where = 0° and ends at the saane point with £= 360° afer one revolution of the crankshaft Which is rotating with a constant angular speed of w. The crankshatt is Focated at a distance “dl from the cylinder axis The tbove and below the Piston. respectively. are known. For the (ype of application pressure p., and p, Fig. 2 Piston-eylinder system 6 PRATA, A. T; Femandes, J. R. 8. Piston lubrication. being considered here, pis the compressor suction pressure ‘and is assumed to be constant. On the top of the piston, the pressure p, isa known function of time. A typical variation of pressure with time is presented in figure 3. Those curves can be experimentally determined, asisthe casein figure 3, calculated from thermodynamic models, which isthe standard procedure in compressors simulation codes (Todescat etal, 1992, Fagot etal, 1994), or eamputed from energy and momentum equations (Cattoand Prata, 1997), Piston orientation within the eylinder bore ae shown in figure 4. As discussed previously, unbalanced forees acting ‘on the piston can cause rotary and translatory motions within the confinement of the cylinder clearance. Only rotation is shown in figure 4, ‘The piston location can be described by the ‘op and bottom skirteccentrivtis,¢, ande, respectively, with respeettothe cylinder axis. The radial velocities ofthe wp and boltom parts ofthe piston skirt are, respectively, &, and y: the corresponding accelerations are &, and 8. It should be ‘noted thate, and e, are functions of time and should be predicted by solving the piston equations of motion, The use of, and e, in describing the piston location is equivalent of using the ‘eccentricity measured trom the eylinder axis to the center of ‘mass of the piston, ¢,» and the ult angle g with respect to the eylinder axis (Gommed and Etsion, 1993). The piston axial yelocity and acceleration are V, and A, respectively. All the ‘motions (rotation, radial and axial cranltion) ake place ina plane parallel to the eylinder axis and perpendicularto the wrist pinaxis. ‘Twocoordinate ystems shown in figure Sate employed in solving the problem, System XYZ has its origi, O', fixed at the eylinder top; the Z direction coincides with the eylinder axis and X lies on the plane of the piston motion, ‘The system XYZ is used t0 formulate the equations governing the piston ddynamies. Another coordinate system, 10z, has is origin, O, at the top of the piston and moves withthe piston velocity V, ‘The moving polar system, ris parallel tothe XY plane ofthe fixed system, XYZ, and is employed to calculate the hydrodynamic induced pressure throughout the radial clearance. In writing the governing equations ofthe problem, some, basic assumptions are adopted. First itis assumed that the zagial clearance e, shown with exaggerated dimension in figures 2,4 and 5, is much smaller than the piston radius. Thus radial variation of pressutein the fluid film i negligible. Furthermore, all solid parts are rigid, and no deformation occurs. The oil flow is laminar and because the radial clearance is much smaller than the piston length, L, entrance effects are ignored, Oil is considered to bea newtonian fluid with all properties constant; 4 fully looded lubrication condition is assumed. With the aid of figures I and 4, and considering that all ‘motions occur in plane XY asindicate in figure 5, the equations describing the piston dynamics can be writen as, SB, +R, =mé,, op E+E +F,=mA, 2 M,+M, = 1,7 @) where F, isthe hydrodynamic force due tothe pressure in the oil film, , isthe gas force acting on the op ofthe piston, the viscous friction force due to the oil movement within the radial clearance, F, and F, are respectively, the axial and radial ‘components of the connetting rod force, mis the piston mass, |, isthe piston moment of inertia about the wrist pia location, M, and M, ate, respectively, the moments about the wristpin {due wo F, and F, and {isthe piston rotary acceleration about the wrist-pin. Because yn figures very small, F, and F, are considered to be aligned with the Z axis, and F, aligned with the X axis, Foot i { Fig. 3 Typical instantaneous gas pressure ating on piston top Fig. 4 - Piston orientation within the eylinder bore Fig. 5 - Coordinate systems employed inthe solution ofthe problem Engenharia Térmica,n. 1, 2001, p. 8 - 63 Due to the option of working with radial accelerations at the ‘op and bottom of te piston, &, and &,. respectively instead of 84 and ¥ the following equations are employed, T= -&)/L=cw*E,-¥,)/L OH é — Zou = 0O7[8, — Zoe E, ELI 5, In writing equations (4) and (5), the time derivative was exchanged by the derivative with respect tothe angle t, where dr=odt. Also, use was made of €=e/e and &=E/e, the dimensionless eccentricities of the top and bottom of the pison, respectively ‘To determine the connecting rod forces acting oa the piston, F, and F,, the equations governing the connecting rod dynamics are required, To this extent, making use ofthe free body diagram for the connecting rod shown in figure 6, the following equations can be written, 6 ES 7 mAg, ™ (F,.Cyp + Fy.Cop )8009~ (Fy. Cyp + FC 6080 Te (08) In equations (6) 10 (8), Fy, and F,,, are the radial and axial components of the crankshaft force acting on the connecting rod, m, is the connecting rod mass, A, and A, are, respectively, the radial and axial components of the connecting rod acceleration, Cys and Cy ate respectively, the distance between the connecting od center of mass to P and PRATA, A. 7; Fernandes, J. R. 8. Piston lubrication, toM, as indicated in figure 6; 6 and § are, espectively, the connecting rod tilting angle with respect to the eylinder axis and its angular acceleration; I isthe connecting rod moment of inertia with respect to its center of mass, B ‘The hydrodynamic force, F,, acting on the piston skirt ‘due tothe pressure developed in the ol film. is t be obtained from the Reynolds equation, For the present situation the Reynolds equation can be written as, a( 3p af rae) 2, ah ah) Sw P+ S| wi | tyr) 2-2) aol" S} ae -— a | ™ where &=2/R, wis the oil viscosity and his the local oil film thickness. For an eccentric and tilted piston, h can be obtained fiom, neefi-[e.-G «ep loo} U0) Associated to equation (9), the following boundary conditions are employed. P=Py and ESR, p=p,, (dl) in which p,, and p,. are the pressure above and below the piston, respectively. as previously discussed. Along the circumferential direction, 8, a periodic boundary condition is imposed, p@)=p(0+2n0), Symmetry along q was not employed here allowing for more generality ofthe computer code being developed (Once the pressure in the oil film is known, both F, and M, can be determined fiom, respectively, Jp0,z)Reosododz = (@) Fig. 6 Free-body diagram fr: a piston and () connecting tod Engenharia Térmica,n. 1, 2001, p. $6 - 62 ) so PRATA, A. T; Fernandes, JR. 8. Piston lubrication. and M, =~] J{p(0.2)R cos0\(z, ~ z)d0dz 3) where 2, isthe wrist-pinfocation from the top of the piston, It should be noted that the e036 appears in both equations (12) and (13) because piston motion is allowed only on the plane ‘that is parallel to the cylinder axis and perpendicular to the vwrist-pinaxis From the piston motion ang ol flow. the viscous fritional force and moment may be computed according to hap, Y, Dep ? Rad « at pe Md. and V, +n) Remo RdOdz (15) respectively, The force duc to the compressed gas, F, is simply, ARP ~ Pac) 06) Atthis moment, the problem formulation has been completed, ‘The kinematics of erankshafi-connecting rod system yields expressions for determining the piston velocity and acceleration, V, and A, , respectively, as well as the components A, and A, of the connecting tod acceleration, and the connecting rod lilting angle, ©, together with its acceleration, §. All those {quantities are to be expressed in terms ofthe crankshaft angle, MATHEMATICAL MODEL ‘The equations for the piston and connecting rod dynamics, equations (1)-3) and (6}-8), respectively, can be combined into only two differential equations, To that extent, F,, from equation (2) is first substituted into equation (7), resulting in an equation for R,, in terms of F, and F,. Next, {rom equation (6) s substituted into equation (8) yielding, after substitution for the previous equation for E, and F,,, the Following equation, F, =[(mA, =F -E)Cy. + (m,Ag, +MA,~F—F, Cy) + ~CytyAy, 148/008 91Cyy + Cue) a Now, substituting equations (4) and (3 (1)and @), respectively, results in, t0 equations BFR, = mea'le, ~zo4(6,-#,)/L] 08) M,+M, =I,cw°@,-&)/L a) The piston trajectory in terms of e, and e, asa function of the crankshatt angle t can now be calculated from equations (18) and (19). Required in those equations are F,, F,, M, and M, ‘hich can be obtained, respectively, from equations (12), (17), (13)and (15). NUMERICAL METHODOLOGY ‘The mumerical soliton of equations (18) and (19) starts with prescribed values for &, &, &, and €y piston trajectory inside the cylinder is erode, che converged Solution should not depend on the ntl guess. For simply oo An implicit formulations employed here a from the intial values the erankshatt ante is advanced and from the 2cometial parameters an the equations forte kinematics of thecrankshaf-connesting rod system, values of piston velocity and acceleration slong Zand connecting od acceleration are dering fora. From Figure 3, frteatis soobained Am iterative process is then needed determine the piston radial position and velocity at time ted, that is Because the itis assumed that, at 1=0, ¢,= at ge e BF, Ef This is performed using a Newton-Raphson procedure to search for the €#78° and Ef" values that would satisfy equations (18) and (19). Values of both piston radial position and acceleration are obtained from the rail veloiies EF and. &F as, at. & 6" eat, By 6 - 8) AT en ‘The pressure field required in both equations (4) and (13) caleuate F, and M,, respectively, is determined integrating equation (9) through @ finite volume approach (Prata and Ferreira, 1990). In some situations, nonrealistic pressure values -may be obtained from equation (9), Because the ol film eannot sustain pressure values smaller than the gas pressure at the edges of the piston skirt, cavitation occurs. In turn, the ‘continuity ofthe ol film is lost and striae are observed inthe oi! flow pattern. Inthe present work, whenever cavitation occurred, the oil pressure were replaced by a gas pressure which value was interpolated between p,, and p,,., depending on the cavitation axial location, For the numerical solution, atypical time step corresponding to five degrees of the crankshaft angle was employed. Convergence of the Newton-Raphson algorithm at each time sep was achieved at mos inten iterations. A converged periodic solution for the piston trajectory required about 300 cycles. Several tests were performed to validate the numerical code, ‘Worth mentioning is that the work delivered to the compressed gas obtained from the area ofthe pv diagram constructed using. ‘the gas pressure from figure 3 when added tothe energy required Engenharia Térmica,n. 1, 2001, p. 56 - 63, LACES ‘overcome friction, obtained from the viscous frictional foree given by equation (14) and the instantaneous piston velocity, ‘agreed within0,016% withthe work delivered tothe connecting rod from the crankshaft and obtained through kinematics considerations. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ‘The results to be presented were obained for atypical reciprocating compressor employed in domestic refrigerators. Some input data including geometric parameters of the compressors listed in able The frst results tobe presented focus onthe influence of some design parameters onthe piston trajectory within the cylinder. Variation of the minimum dimensionless distance between piston and eylinder. hy J.g with espect fo the dimensionless wrist-pin location, z= 2, /R., is presented in igure 7. At 25 =I, the writ pins locked athe ‘midpoint between top and/bottom of the piston. From the figure iis seen that at this focation has is mbximurn ‘value indicating the condition of highest ability, Results for the influence of fore and momeat onthe piston throughout a cele indicated that in the axial direction the force due othe compressed gas, is counterbalanced by the force de wo the connecting ro, wlth a small role played by the piston inertia, and virtually no effect ofthe viscous friction, F. Alone the radial diecton, the fore due to the cownecting rod, Fs counterbalanced by the hydrodynamic fore, F, with no Tole played by the piston nesta. Similarly, the acting moments are those due to the oil film pressure, M, andthe viscous TorceM, The tendency observed in figure Tis in close relation tothe behavior ofthe acting moments: the highest value of h occured at 2 where the moments have their smallest ‘Table 1- Geometric, dynamic and operational baseline parameters used in the simulation ist 2 Cor Ga) [343 Cine Cav) | aks eta | aises oan | sons Dap) | taas Piotmey | oat iitene's —_|onis6 o | 3 ( | | =| | || | ot T T teases oe ay ge a) at ae 2 ig.7- Minimum local ol film thickness during a cycle as a fanetion of wrist-pi lation Engenharia Térmica,n, 1, 2001, p. $8 - 69 PRATA, A. T; Femandes, JR. . Piston lubrication. ‘To decide about the optimum wrist pin location the results of figure 7 have to be analyzed in conjunction with Fesults for oil leakage and power consumption, In addition to oil consumption information, ol leakage between piston skirt, and eylinder bore is very important in assessing refrigerant leakage, which oceurs beeause ofthe gas solubility in the oi Gas dissolved inthe oil plays an important role in reducing the compressor volumetric efficiency. The instantaneous volumetric oil leakage throughout ‘he clearance between piston and cylinder is given by, hi dp yh y. a ap . eae. oe v3 eo From that, cycle average leakage ean be obtained from, fiver 2) from, Pr-EY, oo \where P, is the instantaneous power consumption obtained from the retion force F, and piston velocity Vy, Results for dimensionless power constimption, PI. and dimensionless volumetric oil leakage, V/V,,. are shown in figure 8. From figure 7and 8 itis seen that optimum wrist pin location lies between 2 =0.8and 1.0. Atthisrangeot 2, the Piston operates ina stale trajectory, with iow leakage and low frictional power loss. This isin close agreement to what was ‘obtained by Gommed and Ftsion (1993, 1994), = os as 19 12 4 te Fig. 8- Averaged power comsumption and averaged il leakage asa Funetion of wrist pin location The increase in oi eakage for values of 2, greater than one, 38 sen nFgure 8 ccincides with the more unstable Pattern for the piston motion observed in figure? forthe same 7p, Salus. This is 0 because the increase nol leakage dus twinceasng aluts ofthe radial clearance at some location more than ompensats for the decrease in leakage due to the resulting decease inthe radial eleaance atthe opps locations 3 the piston esis. st PRATA, A 4 Femandes, J. R. 8. Piston lubrication. ‘The influence of the radial clearance between piston skirt and cylinder bore on the maximum value of the dimensionless eccentricity of the top and botiom during aeycle is presented in figure 9. As seen from the figure, the piston becomes more unstable as the radial clearance is increased, Which was also observed by Li etal, (1983), Zhu etal. (1992) and Gommed and Etsion (1994). Smaller values of clearance ‘result in increasing damping of the oil films whieh, in turn, tend to stabilize the piston, 2 ‘ « lene Fig, 9- Maximum eccentricity of top and batiom during a eycte as & Fuetion of skint-tohare radial clearance From the stability point of view, the smaller the adil Clearance the better the design. However, as shown in figure 10, small values ofc results in considerable demand for power ‘to overcome viscous friction. From figure 10, itis seen that a compromise can be achieved between power consumption and oil leakage, which is around cfe,=6. At this value figure 9 yields maximum eccentricities 00.63 and 0.27 fr top an bottom ‘f piston sir, respectively Fig, 10- Averaged power comsumption and averaged ol leakage a5, ‘function of skirt-o-bore adil clearance ‘The effect of lubricant viscosity on the minimum dimensionless distance between piston and eylinder, BY, is presented in figure 11, As would be expected, the stability of the piston trajectory increases as the viscosity increases. Despite the benefit of higher stability as oil viscosity is increased, viscous friction should also be considered. As seen in figure 12, the averaged power consumption per cycle increases almost linearly withthe oll viscosity, Also shown in figure 12s the averaged oil leakage as a function ofthe lubricant viscosity. From the figure itis observed that viscosity plays & 62 RSE ‘ery important role on oil leakage fora small range of Wht, values. “As wh, is inreased, the oil leakage tend 0 be less and less affected by viscosity | 4 ve Fig 11 - Minimum local ol itm ckness during aeyclesasa function of lubricant viscosity wee 4 wn, Fig. 12- Averaged power consumption andaveraged il leakage asa Fenton of abcan wos CONCLUSIONS. A dynamic model for piston lubrication for small reciprocating compressors was presented. Oscillatory secondary piston motion due to the unbalanced forees acting ‘on the piston plays an important role on compressor Performance and was shown to significantly affect both power ‘consumption and oil leakage between piston skirt and cylinder bore, ‘The analysis incorporated equations for both piston and connecting rod dynamics as wel asthe lubrication equation applied to the variable shape oil film present within the confinement ofthe skirt-to-bore radial clearance, Results for piston trajectory, power consumption and oil leakage were explored asa function of waist-pin location, radial clearance between piston and cylinder, and lubricant viscosity. Among ‘he results it was shown that undesirable piston oscillation can be significantly increased ifthe wrist-pin is placed below the middle of the skicc. AC this location the power consumption and oil leakage presented their highest values ‘There are many parameters and factors that affect pision performance which werenot explored here, The model presented an be used as helpful too in assessing the influence of length, ‘mass, shape and location of center of mass ofthe piston, just to mention a few parameters, Others studies ean also be Engenharia Témica,n. 1, 2001, p. 85 - 63 RI performed to investigated whether a lateral writ pin offset ean bbe beneficial in decreasing the moments acting on the piston which would improve piston stability, Further improvements in the present model should incorporate piston and cylinder deformation, as well as skirt and cylinder contaet and friction. GREEK SYMBOLS dimensionless eccentricity angle between connecting rod and cylinder axis: piston tilt angle viscosity of lubricant oil angular coordinate crankshaft angle crankshaft angular velocity (@=driée)

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