Evaluation of two-phase suction, liquid injection and two-phase injection for decreasing the discharge temperature of the R32 scroll compressor

• Three methods for decreasing Tdis of R32 compressor are compared.
• All the three methods can enlarge the operating envelope.
• Two-phase injection outperforms the others in both cooling capacity and COP.
• In two-phase injection, injected quality has little influence on cooling capacity.

R32 has been considered as an important alternative in the phase-out of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) due to its advantages such as relatively low global warming potential compared to R410A, favorable thermal properties. However, the increased discharge temperature of the R32 compressor, compared with R410A, is the main barrier affecting the wide and quick adoption. In this work, three promising methods to decrease the discharge temperature of R32 scroll compressor, namely, two-phase suction, liquid injection and two-phase injection, have been investigated. By considering the variations of motor efficiency and leakage rate, an improved distributed parameter model of the scroll compressor is rebuilt based on a previously developed one (Wang et al., 2008). By that model, the effectiveness of these three methods in decreasing discharge temperature and their influence on thermodynamic performance are researched. It is concluded that all the three methods show excellent potential in decreasing the discharge temperature of R32 scroll compressor. Besides, two-phase injection outperforms the other two methods in cooling capacity and COP by 11.8% and 4.8%, respectively.