oil free compressor

[denstoni]

I have been commissioning a chiller with a new turbocor compressor today.

Oil free compressor on magnetic bearings.

very impressive!

Any one else had much experiance on these yet?

[Brian_UK]

Doing a quick search on this forum shows a recent thread on the subject...

http://www.refrigeration-engineer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11734&highlight=turbocor

[jirhol]

I heard , Last year in Italy exhibition there was a lot of exhibitors with turbocor, now only one company.
Whats happenned? Does it work correctly?:eek:

[KosmisB]

Axima refrigeration in Germany they can tell you all about the turbocor

[wkd]

These compressors are of centrifugal design and as such are more useful for high capacity water cooled chillers.There are however several manufacturers such as RC Group,Climaveneta usin them in Air-Cooled applications.There has been some success in the USA using them in retrofit solutions.I tested two of these compressors some years ago now on a R134A industrial type water cooled units and found them very good up to around 42-45 C condensing temperatures.Therefore I believe the application transition into Air-cooled is quite difficult because the condensing temperatures are up in the 53 C + area.Being of centrifugal design they are susceptible to surge conditions as well as being restricted at low loads which as I said makes them good for high capacity where the turndown is equal to say one compressor running.Start up current are low circa 2Amps,they have an impressive control strategy of their own however this makes it complicated to apply to chillers due to controls compatability.The oil free side is good no loss of performance in heat exchangers and no lubrication system to consider in the design process.Overall a very good technology but very expensive and limited in application.
Hope this helps.