ENERGY OPTIMISATION IN AIR COMPRESSION. THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH ACTIVITY ON SLIDING VANE ROTARY COMPRESSORS

Energy saving represents one of the most important issues of the European Community to counteract climate change due to global warming. A saving goal of 20 % of the energy consumption by 2020 has been set up and great efforts are to be done in order to reach this figure. All the energy intensive sectors are called to produce actions of that quantitative dimension: the industrial sector accounts for 35 % of the energy consumption and, of that 15 % is due to the compression of air. In absolute quantitative terms, 100 TWh of electric energy are consumed in Europe per year to compress air for industrial purposes. Sliding Vane Rotary Compressors (SVRC) show previously unforeseen potential in terms of energy saving due to some intrinsic features specifically related to the principles of the working conditions of the machine and which do not strictly apply to other types of rotary compressor. As we strive for energy savings and CO2 reduction the inherent efficiency advantages of these machines increases the importance of developing this SVRC technology. The Authors continue their previous studies concerning this machine type and present here a refinementof a comprehensive mathematical model which was validated by an experimental data set of an existing industrial 22 kW machine. Thanks to a suitable procedure, all the mechanical aspects were investigatedas well as the breathing properties of the machine as a function of the main operating conditions which were close to the main industrial applications. The measurements included pressure measurements inside the cells and gave the opportunity to go deeper (than today done) inside the physics of the machine.Forward and backward blade tilting was investigated as design parameter to optimize specific energy consumption.