C023PERPORMANCE EVALUATION OF NANO-LUBRICANTS AT THRUST SLIDE-BEARING OF SCROLL COMPRESSORS.pdf

C023, Page 1 International Compressor Engineering Conference at Purdue, July 17-20, 2006 PERPORMANCE EVALUATION OF NANO-LUBRICANTS AT THRUST SLIDE-BEARING OF SCROLL COMPRESSORS Jae Keun LEE*1, Hong Seok KIM1, Byeong Chul LEE2, Jin Sung PARK2 1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pusan National University, San 30, Jangjeon-Dong, Kumjung-Ku, Busan, 609-735, Korea Tel: +82-51-510-3085, Fax: +82-51-582-6368, E-mail: jklee@pusan.ac.kr 2Digital Appliance Research Laboratory, LG Electronics Inc. Seoul, 153-802, Korea Tel: +82-2-818-1559, Fax: +82-2-867-3941, E-mail: bclee@ ABSTRACT This paper presents the friction and anti-wear characteristics of nano-oil with a mixture of refrigerant oil and carbon nano-particles in the thrust slide-bearing of scroll compressors. Frictional loss in the thrust slide-bearing occupies a large part of total mechanical loss in scroll compressors. The characteristics of friction and anti-wear using nano-oil is evaluated using a thrust bearing tester for measuring the temperature of friction surface and the coefficient of friction at the thrust slide-bearing as a function of normal loads up to 4,000N and orbiting speed up to 3,200 rpm. It is found that the coefficient of friction increases with decreasing orbiting speed and normal force. The friction coefficient of carbon nano-oil is 0.015, while that of pure oil is 0.023. It is believed that carbon nano-particles can be coated and improved the lubrication on the friction surfaces. Carbon nano-oil enhances the characteristics of the anti-wear at the thrust slide-bearing of scroll compressors. 1. INTRODUCTION Scroll compressors are being used widely for small and middle sizes room air-conditioners. The performances of scroll compressors are better than that of other compressors, for example, reciprocating type or rotary type compressors in points of high efficiency, low vibration and low noise. Figure 1 shows the cross-sectional view of the l