Impact of discharge port configurations on the performance of sliding vane rotary compressors with a rotating cylinder

With the increasing requirements of compressed gas energy storage systems for compressors and expanders, sliding vane rotary compressors are worth trying. To study the influence of different configurations of discharge ports on the performance of compressors, numerical simulations are conducted on the innovative sliding vane compressors with a rotating cylinder. The reliable Renormalization Group k-ε turbulent model is adopted in Fluent 2020R1. The results show that as the coverage angle increases, the averaged mass flow rates increase, the averaged exhaust gas temperature decreases and the leakage between the rotor and rotating cylinder and at sliding vane tips decrease. When the coverage angle increases from 15° to 45° at the central position angle of −28°, the volumetric efficiency increases from 89.38% to 92.65% while the isentropic efficiency increases from 76.43% to 86.19%. When the central position angles range from −28°, −23° to −18° at the coverage angle of 30°, the farther the discharge port is to the narrowest gap between the rotor and cylinder, the lower the outlet temperature, the less the leakage flow, and the higher the isentropic efficiency. The scheme with the central angle of −28° and coverage angle of 45° is recommended as the best one.