A Low Friction Ball Joint Piston Used in a Reciprocating Compressor

摘要

Improvement of the energy efficiency of home appliances has been a very important topic in industry and academia for the past few decades due to global warming and the limitation of energy resources. Household refrigerators are considered as one of the necessities of human life in our current century, and hermetic compressors have the most important role in their energy efficiency. Although a ball joint piston has more economical advantages, most reciprocating compressors with high performance adopt pin joint pistons because a ball joint mechanism has a large friction loss in areas where the ball and socket contact during the early operation stage. In this paper, the friction loss in a ball joint mechanism is analyzed experimentally, and the aging mechanism in a ball joint piston is investigated. A low friction ball joint piston with higher reliability was developed. Experimental results showed that the compressor performance with a new ball joint piston was improved and that the compressor durability was also enhanced. It suggests that a new ball joint piston be used in high performance reciprocating compressors.