Effect of Oil Feed Groove on Compressor Piston Lubricaton

摘要

Oil feed grooves are implemented in reciprocating compressor piston applications to assure a constant supply of lubricating oil on bearing surfaces and decrease friction loss. In a hermetically sealed compressor, due to small clearances encountered, oil supply becomes critical in order to prevent the boundary lubrication. Due to the small size of the piston and small piston-cylinder clearance, a partial lubrication regime is present. In the current study, a model that solves Reynolds' equation for piston-cylinder sliding bearing for a compressor piston with oil feed groove is developed. A parametric study is carried out to investigate the effects of piston oil feed groove design parameters and then arrive at an improved piston performance by using alternative designs for the oil feed groove.