See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/317720103

Development of the management interface for screw compressor design tools

Conference Paper · April 2004

CITATIONS READS

3 604

4 authors:

Ahmed Kovacevic Nikola Stosic

City, University of London City, University of London
210 PUBLICATIONS   1,822 CITATIONS    195 PUBLICATIONS   2,005 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Elvedin Mujic Ian Kenneth Smith

Bitzer City, University of London
48 PUBLICATIONS   282 CITATIONS    130 PUBLICATIONS   1,530 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

NextORC: Fundamental studies on organic Rankine cycle expanders View project

Development of Screw Compressor by Improving Oil-injection System View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Ahmed Kovacevic on 27 March 2018.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Proceedings of the TMCE 2004, April 13-17, 2004, Lausanne, Switzerland, Edited by Horváth and Xirouchakis
© 2004 Millpress, Rotterdam, ISBN

DEVELOPMENT OF THE MANAGEMENT INTERFACE

FOR SCREW COMPRESSOR DESIGN TOOLS

Ahmed Kovacevic
School of Engineering
City University London
United Kingdom
a.kovacevic@city.ac.uk

Nikola Stosic
Ian K. Smith
School of Engineering
City University London
United Kingdom
n.stosic@city.ac.uk, i.k.smith@city.ac.uk

Elvedin Mujic
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
University of Tuzla
Bosnia and Herzegovina
elvedinm@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT
1. INTRODUCTION
A parametric management interface for design tools
of screw compressors, named DISCO developed in Screw compressors are rotating positive
order to reduce intensive machine design efforts and displacement machines, which are widely used in
to speed up the design process is described in this industry for air compression, refrigeration and
paper. The program package is used to connect process gas applications. These essentially consist of
various design software elements required to a pair of meshing helical lobe rotors contained in a
produce the full three-dimensional models and casing as shown in Figure 1.
manufacturing drawings for screw compressors. It
also enables simultaneous calculation of the 3D fluid
flow and solid structure deformations with
commercial Computational Continuum Mechanics
software by automatic generation of a numerical
mesh for all compressor elements. A limited number
of input parameters is required to describe geometry
and operating conditions of a screw compressor
while a control over the design process is easy to
maintain. The program allows that the modifications
made to the model are cross referenced through any
design software programs which saves both the
computer resources and design time when compared
with a classical design processes.
Figure 1 Screw compressor principal mechanical parts
KEYWORDS
Screw Compressor, Computer Aided Design, Rotors and housing together form a series of working
Computational Fluid Dynamics, Mathematical chambers, as shown in Figure 2, by means of views
Modelling, Optimisation, Management Interface from opposite ends and sides of the machine.

1
Figure 2 Screw compressor working principle; Left - View from Front and Top; Right - View from Bottom and Rear
The dark shaded portions show the enclosed region
where the rotors are surrounded by the casing and
compression takes place, while the light shaded areas
show the regions of the rotors which are exposed to
external pressure. The large light shaded area in the
left part of Figure 2 corresponds to the low pressure
port. The small light shaded region between shaft
ends B and D in the right part of the figure
corresponds to the high pressure port. Admission of
the gas to be compressed occurs through the low
pressure port which is formed by opening the casing
surrounding the top and front face of the rotors.
Exposure of the space between the rotor lobes to the
suction port, as their front ends pass across it, allows
the gas to fill the passages formed between them and
the casing. Further rotation then leads to cut off of
the port and progressive reduction in the trapped
volume in each passage, until the rear ends of the
passages between the rotors are exposed to the high
pressure discharge port. The gas then flows out
through this at approximately constant pressure.
An important feature of screw machines, which can
well be appreciated from examination of Figure 2, is
that if the direction of rotation of the rotors is
reversed, then gas will flow into the machine through
the high pressure port and out through the low
pressure port and it will act as an expander. The
machine will also work as an expander when rotating
in the same direction as a compressor provided that
2 Ahmed Kovacevic, Nikola Stosic, Ian K. Smith, Elvedin Mujic
the suction and discharge ports are positioned on the
opposite sides of the casing to those shown since this
is effectively the same as reversing the direction of
rotation relative to the ports. When operating as a
compressor, mechanical power must be supplied to
shaft A to rotate the machine. When acting as an
expander, it will rotate automatically and power
generated within it will be supplied externally
through shaft A.
According to statistical facts about 80% of newly
installed industrial compressors is of the screw type.
However, these are also heavily used for other
applications such as air compression or refrigeration.
About 17% of energy generated in developed
countries is used for gas compression. In the USA,
during summer months almost 25% of energy is used
in compressors for air-conditioning and refrigeration.
Therefore, market demands require the rapid
production of designs for such machines, which are
competitive both in efficiency and unit price. To
achieve this, each screw compressor design should be
optimised according to its duty, capacity and
available manufacturing facilities and developed
individually. This requires flexible and reliable
design tools which accommodate all design phases
starting from the generation of suitable rotor profiles
to the calculation of the fluid flow and
thermodynamic processes in the machine by use of
both one-dimensional and three-dimensional flow
modelling software and finally the production of full
three-dimensional design models and manufacturing
drawings.
2. DESIGN SOFTWARE PACKAGES
A number of independent software packages have
been either developed or used at City University,
London, each of which aids a different function of
the design process. This paper describes the
development of an interface named DISCO, the
function of which is to connect them together with
standard CFD and CAD packages so that the
repetitive use of any of them is minimised. The input
parameters required for this are limited to a small
number, which describe the rotor and compressor
geometry and the operating conditions, which control
the entire design process. The interface enables all
modifications of the design process to be cross
referenced with the design software units used. This
results in drastic saving of both computer resources
and design time.
The interface developed serves as an envelope in
which the following base packages are contained:
Autodesk Mechanical Desktop 7
SCORPATH – (Screw Compressor Optimal Rotor
Profiling And THermodynamics)
SCORG – (Screw COmpressor Rotor Grid) a
compressor grid generation program
COMET – (Computational cOntinuum Mechanics
Tool) for 3-D analysis of flow and fluid-solid
interaction effects
SKF rolling element bearing data base
3. ROTOR AND COMPRESSOR DESIGN
AND OPTIMISATION
Screw machine rotors have parallel axes and a
uniform lead angle and together form, effectively, a
pair of helical gears. The rotors make line contact
and the meshing criterion in the transverse plane
perpendicular to their axes is the same as that of spur
gears. Although spur gear meshing fully defines
helical screw rotors, it is more convenient to use the
envelope condition for crossed helical gears to get
the required meshing condition as described in Stosic
(2003). More detailed information on the envelope
method applied to gears can be found in Litvin
(1994). To start the procedure of rotor profiling, the
profile point coordinates in the transverse plane of
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MANAGEMENT INTERFACE
FOR SCREW COMPRESSOR DESIGN TOOLS
one rotor, and their first derivatives, must be known.
This profile can be specified on either the main or
gate rotors or in sequence on both. Also the primary
profile may be defined as a rack.
Full rotor and compressor geometry, like the rotor
throughput cross section, rotor displacement, sealing
lines and leakage flow cross section, as well as
suction and discharge port coordinates are calculated
from the rotor transverse plane coordinates and rotor
length and lead. They are later used as input
parameters for calculation of the thermodynamic and
fluid flow processes within the screw compressor as
well as for further design tasks, for example the
generation of detailed drawings.
The algorithm of the thermodynamic and flow
processes used is based on a mathematical model
comprising a set of equations which describe the
physics of all the processes within the screw
compressor. The mathematical model describes an
instantaneous operating volume, which changes with
rotation angle or time, together with the equations of
conservation of mass and energy flow through it, and
a number of algebraic equations defining phenomena
associated with the flow. These are applied to each
process that the fluid is subjected to within the
machine; namely, suction, compression and
discharge. The set of differential equations thus
derived cannot be solved analytically in closed form.
In the past, various simplifications have been made
to the equations in order to expedite their numerical
solution. The present model is more comprehensive
and it is possible to observe the consequences of
neglecting some of the terms in the equations and to
determine the validity of such assumptions. This
provision gives more generality to the model and
makes it suitable for other applications.
Screw machines are today used to compress both dry
and oil-flooded air, refrigerants and process gases
and the requirements for optimum design of their
rotors and other elements differ for each application
and working fluid. Multivariable optimisation
therefore should be employed as the starting point of
the design procedure. The power and capacity of
contemporary computers is only just sufficient to
enable a full multivariable optimisation of both the
rotor profile and the whole compressor design to be
performed simultaneously in one pass. As already
stated, there are several criteria for screw profile
optimisation, which are valid irrespective of the
machine type and duty. These are: R0, R2, R3, R4 εbl,
wtip, Oil ratio, Toil and φ., as shown in Fig 3.
3
 Figure 3 Design software SCORPATH
Optimisation targets must therefore be set according
to the design requirement. Thus, if high efficiency is
required, the specific power or adiabatic and
volumetric efficiencies will be targets, if the
compressor capacity is to be maximized, compressor
flow will be the optimisation target.
Box constrained simplex method was used here to
find the local minima. This selects a simplex
stochastically, as a matrix of independent variables
and calculates the optimisation target. This is later
compared with those of previous calculations and
then their minimization is performed. One or more
optimisation variables may be limited by the
calculation results in the constrained box method.
This gives additional flexibility to the compressor
optimisation. The optimisation criterion can be any
integral parameter of the compressor working cycle
but the most used is the lowest compressor specific
power. The optimisation results, after being input to
an expandable compressor database, finally serve to
estimate a global minimum. The database may be
used later in conjunction with other results to
accelerate the minimisation. All features described in
this chapter are contained in SCORPATH, a main
software package developed by authors, Figure 3.
4 Ahmed Kovacevic, Nikola Stosic, Ian K. Smith, Elvedin Mujic
4. 3D FLUID FLOW AND STRUCTURE
ANALYSIS
The authors have developed an automatic numerical
mapping method for arbitrary screw compressor
geometry, as explained in Kovacevic et all [2002
(a)], which was later used for the analysis of the
processes in screw compressors, as reported by
authors [Kovacevic et all 2002 (b)]. This method
took advantage of the work in CFD area done by
Demirdzic and Peric, who showed that by the use of
moving frames on structured and unstructured grids,
a common numerical method can be used for the
simultaneous solution of fluid flow and structural
analysis. On that basis, authors have developed an
interface program called SCORG (Screw
COmpressor Rotor Geometry Grid generator), which
also enables a grid, generated by the program, to be
directly transferred to a commercial Computational
Fluid Dynamics code through its own pre-processor.
A number of commercial CFD software packages are
currently available, of which the authors decided to
employ COMET GmbH for screw machine
calculations. That code offers the possibility to
calculate both the fluid flow and solid structure
simultaneously by the application of the
Computational Continuum Mechanics (CCM)
principle. By this means all previous works on the
generation and thermodynamic calculation as well as
the design changes obtained through the management
interface DISCO are fully connected into the unique
tool for design of screw machines.
5. THE INTERFACE
The interface, which starts with only a few input
parameters needed to describe the geometry and
operating conditions, enables complete control to be
retained over the each step of the design process
providing that all changes in any phase are returned
to all previous and following design phases. By this
means, the design parameters are controlled from one
place only showing full process flexibility and user
friendliness.
This is becoming very important in today’s lively
market of screw compressors since designers and
manufacturers are expected to achieve the desired
Figure 4 Opening screen of the managing interface program
Therefore, the control over the design process is
parametrically conducted from one place, and the
redundant elements of data and modelling procedures
are reduced. This in turn saves both computer
resources and time wasted in a classical design
process where any change requires substantial effort
to be implemented in all design phases. The opening
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MANAGEMENT INTERFACE
FOR SCREW COMPRESSOR DESIGN TOOLS
performance at low design and manufacturing costs
and in a limited time scale. Therefore, the authors
decided to develop a program to serve as a
computational aid for the complete design process
starting from the initial concept all the way up to the
manufacturing of the compressor. The program
interface manages all geometrical, thermodynamic,
optimisation, boundary and operation parameters of
the screw compressor between all components used
for the design of these machines and connects them
to the CAD and CFD software. Since Mechanical
Desktop 7 accommodates a parametric approach to
the design, the external database, Microsoft Excel is
used here as a connection between the 3D models of
the compressor components. Therefore, all changes
introduced or generated by each basic program are
automatically updated in all components and a full
3D model of the machine is generated with minimum
manual input. The model serves as a basis for rapid
prototyping while the automatically generated
drawings are provided to support more conventional
manufacturing methods.
screen of the interface program DISCO is shown in
Figure 4. DISCO stands for Design Interface for
Screw Compressors.
5
The main design screen is shown

Figure 5. Alterations made to a general compressor

parameters as well as to other details of the machine
are made through this screen.

Figure 5 Main scenery of the interface program

preference. Figure 6 shows a 3D model and assembly
Other base elements for the screw compressor
drawing of an air screw compressor designed by use
calculation and its CAD, as well as spread sheets and
of DISCO interface and other software packages
data bases, can be used to form and complete the
mentioned earlier.
design package instead of the applied ones, and the
choice depends on availability and customer

6 Ahmed Kovacevic, Nikola Stosic, Ian K. Smith, Elvedin Mujic

 Proceedings of the TMCE 2004, April 13-17, 2004, Lausanne, Switzerland, Edited by Horváth and Xirouchakis
© 2004 Millpress, Rotterdam, ISBN

Figure 6 3D Model and Drawings Generated by DISCO with MDT6

require a continuous supply of saturated air at flow
6. DESIGN APPLICATION: rates of 100-300 kg/hr at a pressure of approximately
COMPRESSOR-EXPANDER FOR 3 bar abs. The products of the reaction, containing
FUEL CELL APPLICATION mainly nitrogen and water, are rejected from them at
approximately 80-100oC and 2.8 bar. The power
input required for compressing the air is currently of
the order of 20% of the fuel cell electrical output and
this is unacceptably high for the unit to be
competitive. Therefore, power recovered from
expansion of the discharged reaction products has to
be used to drive the compressor (Figure 8).
A number of proposals have been made on how to do
this but, in the opinion of the authors, the most
promising is to use a combined screw Compressor-
Expander on the same pair of rotors in separate
chambers, formed by a baffle as shown in

Figure 7 Block diagram of a proton membrane exchange

fuel cell with compressor-expander

It appears that the hydrogen proton exchange

membrane is the most promising type of fuel cells for
application in the automotive industry. Units based
on this are now being developed intensively. They

7
 Figure 9.
Rotor profile is generated by SCORPATH to provide
sealing in blow hole areas on both sides of rotors
which is the main prerequisite for both expansion and
compression to be efficient The 3D CAD model is
made in Mechanical Desktop 7 with the aid of
DISCO interface. Fully parametric approach allowed
easier and faster alterations in all phases of design.

Figure 8 Transparent view of the compressor-expander from a CAD model

computational continuum mechanics methods based
Since the concept of the machine is completely new
on finite volume approach and the grid generation
its characteristic had to be predicted and the design
based on analytical transfinite interpolation
optimised in order for the performance to be
(Kovacevic et all, 2002).
improved, both of the machine and the fuel cell for
the automotive application. Three dimensional
approach is applied for this which employs

8 Ahmed Kovacevic, Nikola Stosic, Ian K. Smith, Elvedin Mujic

 Proceedings of the TMCE 2004, April 13-17, 2004, Lausanne, Switzerland, Edited by Horváth and Xirouchakis
© 2004 Millpress, Rotterdam, ISBN

Figure 9 Main rotor, pressure and temperature in the combined machine

cells belong to the fluid part of which 538.050 cells
The numerical grid is generated by SCORG. It
belong to the compressor. Even with well over one
contains of 1,378,960 numerical cells in both, the
million cells, the solution could be obtained from a
fluid and solid parts of the machine. The rotors of
PC powered by an ATHLON 2000+ processor with
the combined machine are mapped with 393,752
1.5 GB RAM by use of COMET CCM solver.
hexahedral numerical cells while the remaining

9
The compressor suction pressure and temperature
were atmospheric while the discharge pressure
exceeded 3 bar with a temperature of up to 80oC.
The temperature was kept low by the humidifying
of the air at the compressor suction. The mixture of
nitrogen and water vapour at the expander inlet
was assumed to be at a pressure of to 2.8 bar with a
temperature of 100oC. The diameter of the male
rotor of the machine was optimised to 69 mm, the
axial distance between rotors was 48 mm and the
configuration was 3 lobes on the male rotor and 5
lobes on the female rotor. The compressor
length/diameter ratio was 1.2 while that of the
expander was 1.0. The rotational speed of the male
rotor was assumed to be 9500 rpm.
The male rotor, the pressure distribution and the
temperature on the male rotor in the combined
machine are shown in Figure 11.

Figure 9 are lubricates by the oil contained in the oil

chamber. This part of the compressor is not
exposed to high temperatures and the oil is cooled
only by air circulation.

Figure 10 Rotor temperature - deformed grid

Calculated temperature and pressure distribution
within the machine serves as the basis for its
mechanical design. Although the air temperature
within the machine is high, the temperature of the
rotors is not because of the averaging between the
high and low temperature achieved by the fast
rotation of rotors. This causes deformation in the
middle part of the rotor but the bearings, which are
provided only on cold sides, are not affected by
temperature at all. Synchronising gears on the right
hand side of

10 Ahmed Kovacevic, Nikola Stosic, Ian K. Smith, Elvedin Mujic


Figure 11 Radial and axial forces for compressor (top),
expander (middle) and combined compressor-expander
(bottom)
Figure 12 shows the temperature distribution within
the rotors. The deformation of the rotors is
magnified by a factor of 1000 in order for it to be
visible. Since the pressure has little influence to the
deformation of the relatively stiff rotors, the bulk of
the deformation is caused by the change in
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MANAGEMENT INTERFACE
FOR SCREW COMPRESSOR DESIGN TOOLS
temperature. The rotors are thereby enlarged in the
central part of the machine and thus the clearances in
the region of high temperatures are reduced by 30-40
µm during operation. Since the pressure difference
in that critical area is large, the leakage flow is
reduced and consequently the volumetric efficiency
of the machine is increased. Such an arrangement
requires only two pairs of bearings compared with
four for a separate compressor and expander. This
reduces the overall weight, which is important for
automotive applications. In addition, both the radial
and axial forces on the bearings are reduced, as
shown in Figure 13. The top diagram shows both
axial and radial bearing forces in case if only
compressor has been considered. The critical is a
axial bearing load on the female rotor. The middle
diagram shows forces on bearings in case of the
expander. On the bottom diagram the combined
machine with reduced forces is shown. This latter
feature is not of very great importance regarding the
rotor deformation but helps if the smaller and lighter
bearings are to be selected.
CONCLUSIONS
The program described in this paper serves as the
managing interface for design software used for the
development of screw machines. It requires only few
input parameters, which specify geometry and
operating conditions of a screw compressor. It
allows a full control over the fully parametric design
process between profile generation, preliminary
calculations, 3D CAD modelling and numerical
analysis. This allows that any changes made in any
stage of the process are accounted for in all other
phases either earlier or later. Therefore, the control
over the design process is parametrically conducted
from only one place, and a redundancy of data and
modelling procedures are reduced. This in turn saves
both computer resources and time. The example of
the development of a new machine which comprises
both compression and expansion in the working
chamber is presented in the paper.
REFERENCES
Kovacevic, A.; Stosic, N.; Smith, I.K.; “CFD Analysis
of Screw Compressor Performance”, In: “Advances
of CFD in Fluid Machinery Design” edited by Elder,
R.L, Tourlidakis, A, Yates M.K, Professional
Engineering Publishing of ImechE, London, 2002
11
Kovacevic, A.; Stosic, N.; Smith, I.K.; “The Influence
of Rotor Deflections upon Screw Compressor
Performance”, Conference on Screw Type Machines
VDI-Schraubenmachinen, Dortmund, Germany,
September 2002, 17-28 (b)
Litvin F.L, 1994: “Teoria zubchatiih zaceplenii (Theory
of Gearing)”, 1956, Nauka Moscow, second edition,
1968, also Gear Geometry and Applied Theory
Prentice-Hill, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1994
Stosic, N, Hanjalic K., “Development and Optimization
of Screw Machines with a Simulation Model, Part I:
Profile Generation, Part II: Thermodynamic
Performance Simulation and Design”, ASME
Proceedings, Journal of Fluids Engineering, 1997,
Vol 119, p 659, p664
Stosic N, Smith I. K. and Kovacevic A.; “Opportunities
for Innovation with Screw Compressors”,
Proceedings of IMechE, Journal of Process
Mechanical Engineering, 2003
Stosic N, Kovacevic A. and Smith I. K.; “Optimisation
of Screw Compressors”, Applied Thermal
Engineering, 23, 2003, pp. 1177-1195

12 Ahmed Kovacevic, Nikola Stosic, Ian K. Smith, Elvedin Mujic

View publication stats