i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 5 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 7 2 2 e1 7 3 3

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journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijrefrig

Simplified steady-state modeling for hermetic compressors

with focus on extrapolation

Wenhua Li*
Modeling, Analysis, Simulation and Computation (MASC), Carrier Corporation, Syracuse, NY 13057, USA

article info abstract

Article history: A simplified physical model for hermetic scroll and reciprocating compressors was
Received 10 August 2011 developed based on thermodynamic principles and was calibrated with experimental data
Received in revised form from publication. The model is able to calculate mass flow rate, power and discharge
16 January 2012 temperature. The extrapolation capability of the proposed model was investigated by
Accepted 9 March 2012 extending to rotary compressor and extrapolating the achieved model to predict the mass
Available online 17 March 2012 flow rate, power and discharge temperature at the conditions outside the given data range.
In an addition, the model was studied by predicting mass flow rate, power and discharge
Keywords: temperature for other refrigerants while experimental data of one refrigerant is used for
Scroll compressor calibration to get fitting parameters. The model exhibited very good extrapolation
Reciprocating compressor capability.
Model ª 2012 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
Volumetric efficiency
Extrapolation

Modélisation simplifiée en régime permanent des

compresseurs hermétiques avec l’accent mis sur
l’extrapolation
Mots clés : Compresseur à spirale ; Compresseur à piston ; Modèle ; Rendement volumétrique ; Extrapolation

1. Introduction system modeling. Under unsteady condition, the compressor

The modeling of compressors plays a very important role in
the simulation of refrigeration or air conditioning system.
Whether in the refrigeration system simulation of steady state
or unsteady state, an accurate compressor model which can
provide reasonable and relatively accurate extrapolation
outside the compressor envelope is also essential for the
transients associated with changes in boundary condition are
small compared to those of heat exchangers, and therefore,
the compressor could be modeled as a steady state process
(Negrão et al., 2011). A complex model of refrigeration system
is coupled with a lot of components and the iteration is not
always within the range in which compressor model is built.
This requires the extrapolation capability of a compressor

* Tel.: þ1 785 317 2624.

E-mail address: wenhuali73@gmail.com.
0140-7007/$ e see front matter ª 2012 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2012.03.008
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 5 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 7 2 2 e1 7 3 3
Nomenclature
hv volumetric efficiency
Pr pressure ratio of discharge pressure with respect
to suction pressure
C clearance fraction
ma actual mass flow rate [kg s1]
mi theoretical mass flow rate [kg s1]
hcl clearance volumetric efficiency
n polytropic index
Pdis discharge pressure [kPa]
Psuc suction pressure [kPa]
dp suction pressure drop [kPa]
model so as to keep the iteration toward the right direction,
which is very important when Newton Raphson method is
accepted to solve the non-linear equations. As next genera-
tion of refrigerants is coming to the table (Calm, 2008) to have
GWP (global warming potential) less than 150, the investiga-
tion and upgrade of existing refrigeration and air conditioning
system is in much need of the extrapolation capability of an
efficient compressor model.
A detailed physical model (Chen, 2000; Jovane, 2007) which
attempts to model the most important physical compressor
characteristics by the fundamental equations (conservation of
mass, energy and momentum, etc.) can deliver considerable
useful information about the principle which the compressor
is working on, but it requires numerous inputs from manu-
factures. Also the computation is very time-consuming. It is
not suitable for modeling of refrigeration system but it is good
for the optimization design of compressors.
A steady state modeling of a complex refrigeration system
or a transient system simulations generally avoid the detailed
physical compressor model. However, the polynomial fitting
such as 10-coefficient polynomial which ARI standard 540-91
presents doesn’t necessarily provide reliable interpolations or
extrapolations for conditions not represented in the
compressor map, has no any physical meaning and should
not be used (Jähnig et al., 2000).
A semi-physical compressor model is preferred whether in
steady-state simulation or transient simulation of whole
refrigeration system. The kind of model seeks to build empirical
and simplified characterized relations based on physical
phenomena from the fundamental physical laws. The simpli-
fied physical unknowns are acquired through the fitting with
limited experimental data. Therefore, the model has not only
high accuracy inside the compressor data envelope, but also
provides good extrapolation outside the envelope even with
a limited number of experimental data. The advantage often
makes numerical iteration in the system modeling avoid toward
wrong direction and get the system simulation converged
because the system computation may go anywhere unexpected.
Establishing a semi-physical compressor model is of
interest in a lot of literature (Negrão et al., 2011; Jähnig et al.,
2000; Kim and Bullard, 2002; Navarroa et al., 2007; Cuevas
et al., 2010; Winandy et al., 2002). However, most of these
literature only discussed and validated the capability (such as
relative error, RMS error and etc.) of their models fitted to
1723
k refrigerant isentropic coefficient
Tevap saturation evaporating temperature [ C]
Tcond saturation condensing temperature [ C]
Vsuc volume flow rate [m3 s1]
Ncomp compressor rotation speed [rpm]
Vdisp compressor displacement [kg s1]
c1, c2, c3 fitting parameters for discharge temperature
a1, a2, a3 fitting parameters for shaft power model
b1, b2 fitting parameters for mass flow rate model
Wloss constant part of power loss [W]
hsuc, hdis enthalpy at suction and discharge [kJ kg1]
Tshell compressor shell temperature [ C]
Wt internal compressor power [W]
experimental data. Navarroa et al. (2007) presented a physical
model which needs 10 unknown parameters to calculate
volumetric efficiency and isentropic efficiency, and considers
the influences from suction valve, discharge valve, leakage,
etc. Their purpose is to introduce a useful physical model
which can be used to predict compressor performance under
operating conditions which are not tested or with different
refrigerants. However, they do not further explore the capacity
of extrapolation of their models under different conditions or
with different refrigerants in the paper. Cuevas et al. (2010)
discussed their semi-empirical compressor models under
extended operating conditions. Their validation is still based
on the parameters fitting with experimental data including the
data under extreme conditions and the capability of extrapo-
lation which should use limited experimental data for
parameter fitting is not explored. Jähnig et al. (2000) explored
the extrapolation capability of the semi-physical models they
developed for a small hermetic compressor. The investigation
of extrapolation is limited to predicate mass flow rate and
power at the higher condensing temperature or lower evapo-
rating temperature outside of the range of experimental data.
In this work, the author tries to present a simplified physical
model of mass flow rate, power and discharge temperature for
hermetic reciprocating and scroll compressors by introducing
the characterizing variables like the volumetric efficiency,
isentropic efficiency. More importantly, the work will investi-
gate the extrapolation capability of the physical model in more
scenarios such as extreme conditions, different refrigerants,
other kinds of compressors, and etc. A validation work is first
performed and the sources of experimental data come from
published literature, which cover a few reciprocating compres-
sors and a few scroll compressors, and involve several kinds of
refrigerants such as R410A, R404A, R22, R134a and R12. By using
these sources, the author aims to build the semi-empirical mode
based on first-hand experimental data to avoid any error by
using the 10-coefficients data from manufactures.
2. Formulation of simplified compressor
model
Some literature (Negrão et al., 2011; Navarroa et al., 2007;
Cuevas et al., 2010; Winandy et al., 2002) developed the
simplified model of a scroll compressor based on a lot of
1724 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 5 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 7 2 2 e1 7 3 3

detailed information of experimental data such as machine for best C when experimental data is used for fitting. With the
suction temperature, scroll suction temperature, scroll suction pressure drop dp and the internal leakage, we refor-
discharge temperature, machine discharge temperature, scroll mulated Eq. (3) as
suction pressure drop, scroll discharge pressure difference,  1=k 
suction pressure, discharge pressure, ambient temperature Pdis
hv ¼ b1 þ b2 (4)
and shaft power. Here we’d like to develop the semi-empirical Psuc ð1  dpÞ
model only with experimental data as shown in Fig. 1. Such Where we have three unknown parameters b1, b2 and dp in Eq.
models can be used to predict mass flow rate, electric power (4), which need experimental data for fitting.
and discharge temperature when inputs of suction tempera-
ture, suction pressure and discharge pressure are given. 2.2. Model of electric power

2.1. Model of mass flow rate In ASHRAE Toolkit (Bourdhouxhe et al., 1999), the calculation
of compressor shaft power is proposed as follows:
For a compressor model, the volumetric efficiency is used to
calculate the suction volume flow rate. The actual volumetric W ¼ ð1 þ aÞWt þ Wloss (5)
efficiency is defined as the ratio of actual volume of refrigerant
entering compressor to the geometric displacement of the Where Wt is the internal compressor power, Wloss is the
compressor, which can be written as: constant loss due to electromechanical loss, and a is the ratio
of electromechanical losses to Wt.
V_ suc It is interesting to notice Negrão et al. (2011) defines the
hv ¼ (1)
Ncomp Vdisp
shaft power as
Where, Ncomp is compressor speed, Vdisp is compressor
displacement and Vsuc is volume flow rate. W ¼ Wisen =hall þ Wloss (6)
Physically, since the suction valve throttling, suction gas
heating, the clearance volume, and internal leakage, the
Where hall is overall efficiency. The overall efficiency is actu-
actual volumetric efficiency is less than 1.
ally the product of efficiency of the motor, mechanical effi-
Threlkeld (1962) viewed the compression and expansion
ciency and isentropic efficiency in a compressor. Wisen is the
processes in a reciprocating compressor as a polytropic
isentropic compression power defined as
process instead of isentropic process and proposed the
following Eq. (2) to calculate the actual volumetric efficiency,
 k1 

 k Pdis k
hv ¼ 1  C Pr1=n  1 (2) Wisen ¼ Psuc V_ suc 1 (7)
k1 Psuc
Where n is polytropic component.
Jähnig et al. (2000) and Cabello et al. (2005) introduced
Negrão et al. (2011) assumed the overall efficiency as constant.
suction pressure drop for compressor mass flow model
Jähnig et al. (2000) presented the calculation of the shaft
because of its significant effect on mass flow rate although
power as
small. Therefore, the actual volume efficiency in the paper of
Jähnig et al. (2000) has the formulation as
W ¼ Wisen =hall (8)
 1=n 
Pdis
hv ¼ 1  C 1 (3)
Psuc ð1  dpÞ
Here, Jähnig et al. (2000) didn’t consider the constant power
Jähnig et al. (2000) thought of the relation of dependence loss but assumed the variable overall efficiency instead of
between C and n, so he took n as isentropic coefficient k to look constant,

Fig. 1 e Conceptual schema of the compressor model.

 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 5 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 7 2 2 e1 7 3 3
hall ¼ d þ e$expðf $Psuc Þ
His analysis was based on the small reciprocating compressor.
By observing and investigating the experimental data of
reciprocating and scroll compressor, we rather believes Eq. (6)
is a representing formula to calculate compressor shaft power
and it is better to view the overall efficiency as variable instead
of constant. The overall efficiency is a combination of isen-
tropic efficiency, mechanical efficiency and motor efficiency.
The overall efficiency is somehow dependant on the suction
pressure and discharge pressure. The proposed overall effi-
ciency can be calculated as
1=hall ¼ a1 þ a2 =Psuc þ a3 =Pdis
Therefore, a complete calculation of compressor shaft
power is proposed as
 k1 
k Pdis k
W ¼ Psuc V_ suc 1 ða1 þ a2 =Pdis þ a3 =Psuc Þ þ Wloss
k1 Psuc
Here we have four parameters a1, a2, a3 and Wloss to be
calculated by fitting experimental data.
2.3. Model of discharge temperature
Generally, the energy balance for the entire compressor is
depicted by
_ dis  hsuc Þ þ Q_ amb
W ¼ mðh
Where, Q_ amb is the heat transfer rate to the ambient, which
can be calculated as:
Q_ amb ¼ UAshell ðTshell  Tamb Þ
The most difficult part is how to calculate Tshell, which may
be related to a lot of factors such as pressure ratio, suction
pressure, discharge pressure, or discharge temperature. Kim
and Bullard (2002) suggested a liner relationship with the
discharge temperature as Tshell¼a þ bTdis. Duprez et al. (2010)
considered shell temperature is related to condensing satu-
ration temperature and evaporating saturation temperature
and chose Tshell ¼ a þ bTevap þ cTcond.
A good correlation should be a good compromise between
simplicity, reduced number of unknown parameters and
results accuracy, extrapolation capability. Our observance and
analysis of experimental data from publications which are
over a wide range of operating conditions suggests the
calculation of shell temperature as
Pdis
Tshell ¼ c1 þ c2 þ c3 =Pdis
Psuc
Which tells the dependence of the shell temperature on the
pressure ratio is not enough to capture the physical, an indi-
vidual discharge pressure is also needed to do better predic-
tion of shell temperature.
In short, although models (Eq. (4), Eq. (11) and Eq. (14))
proposed in this article are derived from reciprocating
compressor, the validation and exploration for scroll
1725
(9) compressor is also performed hereafter by aid of experimental
data. The parameters are determined by minimizing the
following objectives function to obtain optimized agreement
with the measured data at given data points:
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Xmexp  mcal 2
dm ¼ min ;
mexp
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ffi
XWexp  Wcal 2
dW ¼ min ;
Wexp
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi
XTexp  Tcal 2
dT ¼ min ; T is discharge temperature
Texp
(15)
(10)
Where Levenberg Marquardt method is used to solve the
least square problem and estimate the parameters for
models of mass flow rate, electric power and discharge
temperature.
(11) 3. Validation of the models
Experimental data which are used in the paper for model
validation are listed in Table 1. They are all from public liter-
ature and from 6 different journal papers. These first-hand
test data were performed in different conditions and covered
four different refrigerant types of R12, R134a, R22 and R410A.
Data set 1e4 were for scroll compressor while data set 5e8
were for reciprocating compressor.
The simulation results are depicted in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3. The
(12) relative error on the mass flow rates, shaft power is within 5%
and absolute error on discharge temperature is within 5  C for
scroll compressor (Fig. 2) and for reciprocating compressor
(Fig. 3). The small error shows the calculated mass flow rates,
shaft power and discharge temperature are in good agreement
(13) with measured values for the two kinds of compressors. It also
tells that the models are able to be employed to simulate the
scroll compressor although they are derived first from recip-
rocating compressor.
As further evidence, Table 2 is provided to check the
simulation performance of the max. and min. relative error of
mass flow rate, electric power and absolute error on the
discharge temperature. Clearly, from the table, the relative
error on the mass flow rate varies between 5.27% and 5.36%.
The relative error on the shaft power varies between 4.45%
and 4.14%. The absolute error on the discharge temperature
varies between 2.28  C and þ3.78  C. Max. RMS errors for
mass flow rate, shaft power and discharge temperature are
2.96%, 2.29% and 1.68  C, respectively.
4. Extension to other type of compressor
(14)
Jovane (2007) studied a novel rotary compressor and provided
detailed experimental results in his thesis. The experimental
data for refrigerant R410A has 16 data points and it covers the
range of suction pressure from 600 kPa to 1000 kPa and the
range of discharge pressure from 1500 kPa to 3400 kPa. Below
(Fig. 4) are the simulation results with mass flow rate, shaft
power and discharge temperature by using the proposed
1726 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 5 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 7 2 2 e1 7 3 3

Table 1 e List of sources of experimental data.

Name Source of Data Refrigerant Type Psuc[kPa] Pdis[kPa]

Data set 1 Chen, 2000 R410A Scroll 570e1100 1650e2700

Data set 2 Winandy et al., 2002 R22 Scroll 240e730 1190e2530
Data set 3 Cuevas and Lebrun, 2009 R134a Scroll 510e2040 1000e3910
Data set 4 Winandy and Lebrun, 2002 R22 Scroll 200e520 1680e2900
Data set 5 Compressor X, Negrão et al., 2011 R134a Recipe 66e164 1100e1700
Data set 6 Compressor Y, Negrão et al., 2011 R134a Recipe 66e164 1100e1700
Data set 7 Dataset B9A, Jähnig et al., 2000 R12 Recipe 100e170 900e1200
Data set 8 Dataset A4, Jähnig et al., 2000 R134a Recipe 90e180 950e1500

Fig. 2 e Comparison of measured and computed data for scroll compressor (dataset 1e4).
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 5 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 7 2 2 e1 7 3 3 1727

Fig. 3 e Comparison of measured and computed data for reciprocating compressor (dataset 5e8).

Table 2 e Fitting error for the models.

Mass flow rate Electric power Discharge temperature

Min Rel. Max. Rel. RMS Min Rel. Max. Rel. RMS Min Abs. Max. Abs. RMS
error % error % error % error % error % error % error [ C] error [ C] error [ C]

Data set 1 4.30 5.36 2.96 4.45 3.71 2.29 1.62 2.94 1.12
Data set 2 3.26 4.38 1.65 3.36 2.29 1.23 1.87 2.52 1.15
Data set 3 1.80 2.66 1.13 4.05 4.14 2.26 0.42 2.58 0.74
Data set 4 2.48 3.24 1.87 0.80 0.49 0.41 1.40 1.50 0.86
Data set 5 4.37 2.61 2.07 1.72 1.80 1.02 1.80 2.82 1.59
Data set 6 5.27 3.39 2.73 0.84 1.09 0.56 2.27 3.78 1.68
Data set 7 1.87 1.69 1.18 0.50 0.67 0.38 2.28 2.92 1.59
Data set 8 2.81 2.37 1.28 1.51 1.01 0.77 N/A N/A N/A
1728 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 5 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 7 2 2 e1 7 3 3

models in Section 2. The relative error on mass flow rate and
electric power is between 1.14% and 0.98%, 1.07% and
0.36%, respectively. The absolute error on discharge temper-
ature is between 0.33  C and 0.48  C. It is not clear why the
presented models behave much better for the rotary
compressor because the accuracy of experimental data may
be a good contribution. However, from the point of view of
modeling, by examining Eq. (4) and Eq. (11), we can see the
constant terms of dp and Wloss may be more close to constant
in reality when a very high efficient rotary compressor is
modeled, resulting in a more stable solution.
The results tell us that the models proposed in Section 2 are
also able to be employed to model the type of rotary compressor.
5. Extrapolation to outside conditions
To check the extrapolation capabilities of the proposed models,
Dataset 2 (scroll compressor) is taken for the study. In Table 3,
the data with suction pressure from 240 kPa to 620 kPa and
correspondingly the discharge pressure from 1190 kPa to
1940 kPa are arranged for parameters fitting. The rest data with

Fig. 4 e Comparison of measured and computed data for rotary compressor.

 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 5 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 7 2 2 e1 7 3 3 1729

Table 3 e Comparison of extrapolation capability to higher condensing pressure and higher evaporating pressure for the
models (dataset 2).
Tsuc Psuc Pdis Rel. error  mass Rel. error  electric Abs. error  discharge
[ C] [kPa] [kPa] flow rate power temperature [K]

Used for model parameters 25 240 1190 1.30% 1.63% 0.97

fitting 25 350 1190 0.93% 1.06% 0.75
25 500 1190 0.97% 0.49% 0.38
25 620 1190 0.07% 0.16% 0.43
25 300 1350 3.01% 0.97% 0.36
25 420 1350 0.35% 0.47% 0.79
25 580 1350 0.55% 0.70% 0.71
25 300 1530 2.83% 1.49% 1.97
25 350 1530 2.21% 0.25% 1.00
25 420 1530 0.27% 0.05% 1.14
25 620 1530 0.19% 1.42% 0.13
25 350 1730 2.54% 0.86% 1.70
25 500 1730 1.13% 0.43% 1.29
25 420 1940 0.33% 1.13% 1.53
25 500 1940 0.18% 0.39% 1.95
25 580 1940 0.65% 0.75% 1.89
Not used for model parameters 18.3 630 2150 3.35% 1.39% 0.03
\fitting 25 500 2170 1.91% 1.41% 1.31
25 620 2170 1.57% 1.80% 0.87
25 620 2430 5.15% 0.85% 0.37
25 580 2530 0.55% 3.08% 0.74
25 680 1360 0.52% 0.69% 0.46
25 680 1940 0.92% 2.17% 1.21
25 680 2430 2.25% 1.70% 0.79
25 730 1190 0.27% 1.92% 0.97
25 730 1730 0.26% 2.08% 1.14
25 730 2170 1.10% 2.65% 1.52
25 730 2533 2.27% 1.70% 1.02

characteristics of suction pressure higher than 620 kPa or
discharge pressure higher than 1940 kPa are purposely picked
for comparison with predicted results. We aim at looking at the
extrapolation capabilities of the models at higher suction
pressure or higher discharge pressure.
By examining the relative error of mass flow rate and
shaft power, the absolute error of discharge temperature in
Table 3, the models all exhibit very good extrapolation
capabilities at higher suction pressure or higher discharge
pressure. At the predicted conditions which are outside the
fitting data range, relative error of mass flow rate and shaft
power is within 4%, and absolute error of discharge temper-
ature is within 2 K.
To further explore the extrapolation capabilities, we used
the parameters which have been achieved in the above anal-
ysis to calculate the mass flow rate, power, discharge
temperature at lower suction pressure to 164 kPa (30  C
saturation temperature), higher suction pressure to 910 kPa
(20  C saturation temperature), lower discharge pressure
1044 kPa (25  C saturation temperature) and higher discharge
pressure 2998 kPa (70  C saturation temperature). The results
are shown in Fig. 5 (values in the legend represent condensing
temperature). The dotted points in the figure are from exper-
iment and thin lines are from calculated results. Each thin line
is corresponding to a condensing temperature and results at
several different condensing temperatures such as 25  C,
40  C, 55  C and 70  C are plotted in the figure. Although more
test data are plotted, only some test data pointed out in Table 3
are used to achieve the fitting parameters for each model.
In Fig. 5(a), there is one experiment data (Tevap ¼ 7  C,
Tcond ¼ 60  C) whose mass flow rate is even smaller than the
predicted one at Tcond ¼ 70  C. But the relative error on the
condition is 5.15%, which is acceptable. Furthermore, the
relative errors of predicted mass flow rate for Psuc ¼ 500 kPa
and 580 kPa in Table 3 are both less than 2%, indicating
possible experimental error for the experimental data at
Tevap ¼ 7  C and Tcond ¼ 60  C. From the figure, we can see the
model of mass flow rate (Eq. (4)) performs very well outside the
range of limit experimental data in capturing the physical
characteristics: mass flow rate is mainly dependent on the
compressor inlet pressure and less relies on the discharge
pressure. In Fig. 5(b) and (c), the electric power and discharge
temperature are plotted verse evaporating temperature. In
Fig. 5(b), as evaporating temperature increase, the shaft power
per unit mass flow rate starts to be influenced less by
condensing temperature. This is understandable because the
difference of pressure ratio between two different condensing
temperatures is becoming smaller as evaporating tempera-
ture increases. The trend is also well-captured by the
proposed model of shaft power (Eq. (11)) through examining
the extrapolation outside the fitting data range in Fig. 5(b). In
Fig. 5(c), the experimental data indicated that as evaporating
temperature increases or condensing temperature decreases,
discharge temperature decreases. The trend is almost
consistent with that of power per unit mass flow rate illus-
trated in Fig. 5(b). The proposed model of discharge temper-
ature (Eq. (14)) also captured the trend even outside the
experimental data used for fitting.
1730 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 5 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 7 2 2 e1 7 3 3
Overall, from these figures (Fig. 5(a)e(c)) it can be seen that
the predicted results by using the proposed models are in good
agreement with the trend of experimental data even outside
the range of experimental data used for fitting. The physical
characteristics of mass flow rate, shaft power and discharge
temperature mainly related to condensing temperature and
evaporating temperature are well-captured by the proposed
models. Based on the fact from Table 3 that relative error of
mass flow rate and electrical power are within 3.5% and
Fig. 5 e (a) Extrapolation of mass flow rate model for
a scroll compressor. (b) Extrapolation of electrical power
model for a scroll compressor. (c) Extrapolation of
discharge temperature model for a scroll compressor.
absolute error of discharge temperature is within 1.5 K after
extrapolation to higher suction pressure (saturation temper-
ature is 5.3  C higher) higher and higher discharge pressure
(saturation temperature is 12  C higher), one can defer that
when suction saturation temperate is 10  C or discharge
saturation temperature is 15  C away from experimental data
which is used for parameters fitting, extrapolation of the
models are still within a good accuracy (about 5%).
6. Extrapolation to different ambient
temperature
The models we presented calculate mass flow rate, shaft
power and discharge temperature by considering the
compressor suction pressure, temperature and discharge
pressure as inputs. The models don’t take ambient tempera-
ture as direct input to predict mass flow rate and shaft power.
The ambient temperature is a direct input when calculating
discharge temperature.
In the following analysis, we will use data from the paper of
Jähnig et al. (2000) to examine the extrapolation capability of
mass flow rate model and shaft power model when ambient
temperature changes. Since the data doesn’t provide
discharge temperature, we will not cover discharge tempera-
ture model. In Table 4, calorimeter tests were performed at
three ambient temperatures of 32.2  C, 43.3  C and 15.6  C. At
15.6  C, the condensing temperatures were much lower than
ones at 32.2  C.
In this study, data at ambient temperature of 32.2  C is used
to fit parameters for the models and then the achieved
parameters for each model are employed to predict the mass
flow rate and shaft power at ambient temperature of 43.3  C
and 15.6  C. From Table 4 we can see that simulation results
are in good agreement with measured data even when
condensing temperature changes a lot, which is due to
ambient temperature (see rows at ambient temperature of
15.6  C). The good result of prediction tells us that presented
mass flow model is able to handle minor change of mass flow
rate due to the variation of ambient temperature (as Jähnig
et al. (2000) and Negrão et al. (2011) described, the mass flow
rate generally is not sensitive to ambient temperature).
Although the condensing temperature at ambient 15.6  C were
much lower than ones at 32.2  C which was used for calibra-
tion to get parameters, the relative error of extrapolating to
15.6  C for power range is less than 4.4%. Jähnig et al. (2000)
used his model to study the data set and got relative errors
for power range from 8% to 12%. He thought the inaccuracies
are confounded in this case and didn’t give further analysis.
By examining the Table 4, it is evident that when ambient
temperature is away from model setup ambient temperature
by 10  C, the relative error of electric power is within 2% and
the error is 4.4% when it is away from the baseline ambient
temperature by 17  C. That indicates that the extrapolation
capacity of the models presented can be 20  C away from the
baseline ambient temperature if accuracy of relative error
within 5% is the target of prediction.
As further analysis of extrapolation for the reciprocating
compressor, we used the parameters achieved by fitting the
data of 9 points to calculate the mass flow rate and shaft
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 5 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 7 2 2 e1 7 3 3 1731

Table 4 e Comparison of relative error for the models (data from the paper of Jähnig et al., 2000).
Ambient Tevap Tcond Measured mass Rel. error  mass Measured electric Rel. error 
temperature [ C] [ C] flow rate [g s1] flow rate power [W] electric power
[ C]

Used for model 32.2 28.9 54.4 1.148 0.64% 118.71 0.35%
parameters fitting 32.2 28.9 48.9 1.184 0.26% 115.95 0.13%
32.2 28.9 43.3 1.225 0.49% 112.85 0.66%
32.2 23.3 54.4 1.511 1.59% 136.03 0.09%
32.2 23.3 48.9 1.586 0.59% 132.44 0.03%
32.2 23.3 43.3 1.62 0.25% 128.02 0.25%
32.2 17.8 54.4 1.97 1.61% 153.73 0.44%
32.2 17.8 48.9 2.039 0.26% 148.70 0.14%
32.2 17.8 43.3 2.113 1.33% 143.12 0.36%
Not used for model 43.3 28.9 54.4 1.091 0.19% 118.71 1.81%
parameters fitting 43.3 28.9 48.9 1.144 1.00% 115.99 1.48%
43.3 23.3 54.4 1.49 1.25% 136.14 1.22%
43.3 23.3 48.9 1.502 0.67% 132.25 1.42%
15.6 28.9 26.7 1.376 1.90% 102.20 4.39%
15.6 28.9 23.9 1.436 1.34% 100.28 4.13%
15.6 23.3 26.7 1.846 0.86% 113.50 3.24%
15.6 23.3 23.9 1.885 2.11% 110.93 3.62%

Fig. 6 e (a) Extrapolation of mass flow rate model for Fig. 7 e (a) Comparison of measured and computed mass
a reciprocating compressor. (b) Extrapolation of electrical flow rate for ZB26KCE-TFD (R22). (b) Comparison of measured
power model for a reciprocating compressor. and computed electric power for ZB26KCE-TFD (R22).
1732 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 5 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 7 2 2 e1 7 3 3
power with evaporating temperature from 40  C to 5  C and
condensing temperature from 23.9  C to 65  C. Fig. 6(a) and (b)
are the results. Some test points are overlapped in the figure.
The predicted trend of mass flow rate and shaft power is well
aligned with that of experimental data. The trend is very
similar as that in Fig. 5(a) and Fig. 5(b) for a scroll compressor.
It should be noted that, from the figure, test data at
Tcond ¼ 23.9  C and 26.7  C are deviated from the corre-
sponding extrapolation line, which do not indicate bad
extrapolation. All extrapolation curves are plotted based on
the same suction temperature 32.2  C but the corresponding
ambient temperature at Tcond ¼ 23.9  C and 26.7  C should be
used as the input of suction temperature for the numerical
calculation. This is the reason why the presented model
can perform a good extrapolation to different ambient
temperature.
7. Extrapolation to different refrigerants
A Copeland Scroll compressor ZB26KCE-TFD is used to study
the capability of the models in extrapolating to different
refrigerants. Its displacement is 12 m3 h1 and nominal speed
Fig. 8 e (a) Comparison of measured and predicted mass flow
rate for ZB26KCE-TFD (R404A) using the model fitted for R22.
(b) Comparison of measured and predicted electric power for
ZB26KCE-TFD (R404A) using the model fitted for R22.
is 3500 rpm. The experimental data were recorded at ambient
35  C with compressor suction temperature of 18.3  C. The
data doesn’t provide the measurement of discharge
temperature.
First, the data for refrigerant R22 is used for parameters
fitting and for the baseline analysis. Fitting parameters for the
models: mass flow rate, b1 ¼ 1.028, b2 ¼ 0.0272, dp ¼ 2.6e-
5 kPa; shaft power, a1 ¼ 1.366, a2 ¼ 2327.7 kPa, a3 ¼ 40.3 kPa,
Wloss ¼ 3.196 W. Fig. 7(a) and (b) are the comparisons of
calculated mass flow rate, shaft power with measured ones.
The models can be fitted to experimental data within 5%
(actual max. relative error is less than 2.3%).
As an extrapolation, the above parameters achieved using
the measured data of refrigerant R22 are employed to predict
the performance of mass flow rate and shaft power for
refrigerant R404A. Fig. 8 is the illustration of the simulation
results. The relative error on mass flow rate for R404A is
within 5% and the error on shaft power for R404A is within 5%
except one point which has relative error of 8%. The results
are what we expected because the models we presented are
irrelevant to refrigerant type and they are developed in the
context of semi-empirical relation.
8. Conclusion
This paper presents a detailed analysis of semi-empirical
methods to calculate mass flow rate, shaft power and
discharge temperature for reciprocating compressor and scroll
compressor. The analysis is focused on their extrapolation
capabilities while the models are validated within 5% relative
error of calculated mass flow, shaft power and discharge
temperature compared to experimental ones. The study of
exploration includes extending to rotary compressor, extrap-
olating the achieve models to predict the mass flow rate, shaft
power and discharge temperature at the conditions outside the
given data range, extrapolating to other ambient temperature,
predicting mass flow rate, shaft power, discharge temperature
for other refrigerants when experimental data for one refrig-
erant is used to get fitting parameters. The proposed models
exhibit a very good capability of extrapolation.
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