Dear colleagues:

Don’t take wrong, as an independent consultant I can not do advertising for no

compressor brand, but if I state some opinions I should give the logic behind them.

As we know for screw compressors, the Vi is the ratio between the volume of gas
trapped in a rotor channel at the beginning of the compression and the volume of the gas
in the same channel at the beginning of the discharge, the discharge happens when the
gas inside this channel in its rotation finds the discharge port. So the gas pressure at
discharge is equal to the condensing pressure only when the compressor Vi (the
designed geometry of it) guarantees that the “pressure ratio” that reaches the
compressor, is the same of the required compressor ratio R of the system where the
compressor is working. In other words when the pressure that the gas reach is the same
of the condensing pressure.

The continuous variable Vi give a better performance at partial loads and for the same
compressor at different required system pressure ratios R; this is because a variable Vi
try to maintain the best volume ratio in order that the gas pressure inside the compressor
at discharge match the condensing pressure, also Vilter single screws uses a prime oil
pump that run only at the start of the compressor, twin screws has the oil pump running
all the time for the hydraulics needed for the motion of the capacity control slide valve
and for front bearing lubrication. (this could not look a lot but is extra energy that
counts when the total cost of KW/h is 0.10 to 0.16 usd, as is my case)

In the above graph we can see that the isentropic efficiency at 100% capacity is better
for a variable Vi (blue upper curve) compared to a fixed compressor Vi, of course when
the chosen Vi is the perfect match required for the system pressure ratio the isentropic
efficiency is the same for both cases.

Let us take a look to see what happen at partial load for a fixed Vi twin screw.
In this graph (for a twin screw) is observed that the capacity slide valve for partial load
operation moves to the front (left) and give some compensation of Vi, but by the fact in
this case, because of the lack of an independent Vi control the equipment is not able to
match the required Vi at partial loads, so the pressure inside of the compressor at the
beginning of the gas discharge (even if by a casualty did match the condensing pressure
at 100% load), will not match the condensing pressure at partial loads.

In this graph we can see that even for a single screw compressor with an independent Vi
slide, this does not have an ideal performance at partial loads, so we can state that for a
twin screw without variable Vi slide, the curve will be above the single screw curve.
(yes we can get variable Vi with twin screw, but because of the complexity of the
mechanical system and the additional cost this is not the rule but the exception in twin
screw application)

I have chosen single and twin screws at different application temperatures; any one
could be a good choice, but because the selection of a compressor brand in not just an
engineering issue, we have to look the whole picture for our application (time share at
partial load operation, energy cost, maintenance, technical assistance during the
engineering, local assistance during operation, spare parts costs, initial cost, financing,
etc, etc)

Best regards
M.E. Gonzalo ARIAS