[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello everyone and welcome to the Consulting Specifying Engineer podcast. I'm your host today, Anna Steinger. In today's episode, we'll be joined by Eddie Rodriguez to discuss compressors for the H Vac market. Centrifugal compressors specifically offer a multitude of advantages to the H Vac market including energy savings, reduced maintenance and increased sustainability. As the industry continues to move towards more sustainable options, oil free and centrifugal compressors can be a really great option for engineers to consider.
Our guest today to help us cover this topic, as I mentioned, is Eddie Rodriguez. Eddie is a senior product manager for Danfoss turbocore working with oil free centrifugal compressors for the H VAC market. He develops and implements global product Strategy for Danfoss TurboCor products and is responsible for monitoring market needs, industry trends and the competitive landscape. Eddie has worked at Danfoss since 2017 and has over 27 years of experience in the H VAC industry, working for major OEMs and application support and product management roles. Thank you so much for joining us today Eddie, to explain this topic.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Great. So to get started, can you just tell me how do oil free magnetic bearing compressors work?
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Sure, no problem. That's a great question.
I always like to answer that question by first describing how a traditional oiled compressor works. So a traditional oil compressor needs oil for lubrication, specifically for the bearings and the motor shaft.
Oil is injected into the bearings on a traditional oil compressor in order to lubricate the bearings and ensure that the shaft does not overheat. So without oil, the motor shaft will overheat and obviously compressor damage will result in an oil free magnetic bearing compressor design. Essentially, we're taking out that entire oil management system out.
And by doing that we are able to incur a lot of benefits.
Some of the things that you'll see in terms of benefit are in terms of efficiency, which we'll talk about later on.
But essentially what happens is that when you when you utilize an oil free magnetic magnetic bearing system instead of an traditional oiled bearing system, we're going to use electrically powered magnetic bearings. And those electrically powered magnetic bearings will create a magnetic field that will allow the motor shaft to levitate in air. And by doing that there is no longer need for oil to lubricate the system. So in a sense the motor shaft is able to spin freely and eliminate the metal to metal contact that would result in a traditional oil compressor system.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Great, thank you for that overview. And so these specific kinds of compressors, what kind of advantages do they offer compared to more traditional compressors that are going to use an oil management system?
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Yes. So in a oil free magnetic bearing compressor system, you're going to see a lot of advantages that you won't see in a traditional oil compressor system. So first of all, as I mentioned before, by using an oil free compressor design, you're going to, you are essentially you're eliminating oil from the system. And by eliminating oil from the system, the most obvious benefit you're going to get is an increase in efficiency because the presence of oil in the system is really just needed to lubricate the bearings. Other than that, it actually harms your heat transfer capabilities.
So anytime oil is injected into the system and migrates or heat exchangers is going to have an adverse effect on efficiency. So by eliminating oil from the system, you're, you're essentially gaining an increase on performance and efficiency on your chiller system. The second main advantage that you get with an oil free system is that you're going to eliminate a complex oil management system from a chiller. And by eliminating that, you're essentially going to get a much simpler chiller design. And by having a simple chiller design, that means you're going to eliminate a lot of complex parts. And, and limiting complex parts means less maintenance and less chances for things to break down in your chiller.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Kind of in the opposite vein, are these oil free compressors limited to any kind of particular applications?
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's a great question. So when in the early history, when oil free compressors first came out into the market, there were some because the technology was relatively new. They are limited to comfort cooling applications and specifically for water cooled chiller applications.
But as the technology matured, the operating map capabilities of oil free compressors expanded. And so today what you see is that oil free compressors are available in a whole wide range of applications. And in fact it can do many of the applications that you would typically see a traditional oil compressor can do. And these include things like air cooled chiller applications in hot ambient climates such as in the Middle east or in southwestern United States, like in Arizona. It's also capable of being used in data center cooling where, where typically you'll need high saturated suction temperatures that are needed to keep your computer equipment cool. You can also use it in process applications which need typically needs high temperature water or even low temperature water.
You can also use it in ice storage applications where you need cold brine temperatures such as inland ice rinks and applications like that. And then lastly, it could be used in heating applications where you may use heat recovery or hot water for some sort of process applications, as well as for comfort heating that you typically would use, like in a, in a district heating application.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Great. Thank you for that. And so as the industry is really moving towards sustainability, there's been a lot of talk surrounding low GWT GWP refrigerants. So do these compressors, are they available for use with low GWP refrigerants?
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Absolutely. Oil free compressors are not only available, but also they're also optimized for the, for being used with low GWP refrigerants.
At Danfoss, we're very cognizant about introducing environmentally friendly products and we want to make sure that we do our part to help minimize the effects of global warming. And some of the examples of low GWP refrigerants that are available include R513a, R1234 ze, and R515b. And so these are some examples are these examples I just mentioned are low GWP refrigerants that have GWP levels close to zero. And so they are suitable for use for in regions in North America and in Europe where there are ongoing refrigerant guidelines which restrict the use of HFCs and are mandating the use of low GWP refrigerants.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: And those are all the questions we have for you today. So once again, this has been Eddie Rodriguez of Danfoss on oil free magnetic bearing compressors for H Vac Systems. Thank you so much for talking us today, Eddie. And thank you all to our audience for listening. For any more information on Compressors or H Vac Systems, visit consulting specifying
[email protected]. and remember to check back every other week for our next episode. Talk to y' all next time.
