Scroll Compressor Wall Strength Improvement

Scroll wall strength is of critical importance to compressor reliability and durability. This is most critical at the center portion of the scroll wall as it is exposed to the highest working gas pressure in the A/C system as well as to high discharge gas temperatures.

This paper will focus on a method to achieve stress reduction at the center portion of the scroll wall by using Finite Element Methods (FEM) analysis. Scroll wall endurance was evaluated utilizing an accelerated durability test which covered the following:

• Optimization method of scroll wall center portion geometry.
• Effect of stress reduction by optimization of fillet radius.
• Impact of discharge gas temperature on scroll wall endurance.