5.

5 EFFECT OF EVAPORATING AND

CONDENSING TEMPERATURES ON

REFRIGERATING CAPACITY

It is important for the designer and operator of a system to know how the suction

and discharge pressures influence the capacity and power, because few plants

operate with these pressures constant. An awareness of the influence on power

requirements is needed both for analyses of energy requirements and for

selection and operation of the motor without overloading it.

For the reciprocating compressor, Figure 4.10 showed the effect of evaporating

and condensing temperatures on the refrigerating capacity, and Figure 4.13

the effect of these temperatures on the power requirement. Figure 5.9 shows

the influence of the evaporating and condensing temperatures on the

refrigerating capacity, with the evaporating temperature exerting the major

influence. The power required by the screw compressor appears in Fig. 5.10,

exhibiting the characteristic peak in the curve at a given condensing

temperature. These trends for the screw compressor are similar to those of the

reciprocating compressor, but there are also some differences worth noting. For

both types of compressors the refrigerating capacity is influenced by the

volumetric efficiency, the specific volume of the suction vapor, and the pressure

ratio. The power is affected by the volumetric efficiency and work of compression.

Because the screw compressor completes its expulsion of gas with virtually no

volume remaining, there is no clearance volume to reexpand, as is the case with

the reciprocating compressor. It would be expected, then, that the volumetric

efficiency and refrigerating capacity drop off less as the pressure ratio increases.

Table 5.2 shows the comparison of refrigerating capacity and power of a screw

and reciprocating compressor as the evaporating temperature changes. Indeed

at the higher condensing temperature