Theoretical modeling of sliding vane compressor with leakage

Performance of a sliding vane compressor is significantly influenced by the leakage effect occurring between adjacent cells during the compression phase of the cycle. In this paper, thermodynamic and dynamical mathematical models were formulated for a double action sliding vane compressor including leakage effect modeling. The leakage modeling is incorporated through an analytic pressure model with a single tunable parameter to be adjusted to correspond with specific compressor leakage characteristics. The effect of leakage on the cell pressure, temperature, mass, and work, and total vane torque variations were qualitatively investigated. The study illustrated the significant effect of leakage on power input requirement, discharge pressure and mass delivery, and less significant effect on mechanical efficiency and specific mass delivery. The validity of the simulation results is made by comparing the pressure work calculated from both the thermodynamic and the dynamic models.