Crankcase cooling
Crankcase cooling
(OP)
I am developing an oil-free air compressor and would like to get some feedback from anyone who has any experience in cooling. Inside of my crankcase seems to get quite warm around 250F. Was wondering if anyone has any idea how to cool the housing using natural convection. I have a fan placed beside it to provide forced cooling to my cylinders.





RE: Crankcase cooling
RE: Crankcase cooling
RE: Crankcase cooling
RE: Crankcase cooling
I was thinking of bringing in ambient air through an orifice and cooling due to expantion it as it enters the cranckase.
RE: Crankcase cooling
RE: Crankcase cooling
RE: Crankcase cooling
RE: Crankcase cooling
RE: Crankcase cooling
RE: Crankcase cooling
RE: Crankcase cooling
RE: Crankcase cooling
RE: Crankcase cooling
RE: Crankcase cooling
With force fed lubrication the oil is usually cooled outside the frame in an oil cooler (air or water cooled). This helps to cool the frame. Maximum oil temperature in this type of design is around 180 deg F.
There are three sources of heat in the frame. One is the bearings; both main and big end, where the heat will be generated. If the cylinder is single acting there will be some blow by of hot gas into the frame from the cylinder. This will not happen for double acting cylinder. Because the gas gets hot during compression, the discharge side of cylinder gets hot. Some heat is always transmitted by conduction from the cylinder to the frame.
From design point of view there are probably two areas that could be affected by high temperatures:
1. bearings
2. crankshaft seals if any
This temperature is not high enough to affect the allowable stress in cast iron (it would be worth while checking this).
You said you are developing an oil free air compressor. Are you developing it from scratch. Since you are using grease lubricated bearings, I am assuming that you are developing a small compressor. How many hp is it? I have lot of experience in design, analysis and testing of reciprocating compressors of all sizes. If you need any help you can contact me on linkedin.
Gurmeet
Time is an illusion. Now is the only thing there is.
RE: Crankcase cooling
I feed the intake air from the inlet filter into the crankcase and then guide the air out to the low pressure inlet. This allows my crankshaft drive to be little cooler but the heat picked up by the filtered air eventually raises my low pressure intake temperature to 200F whcih does not help with my efficiency.
Please provide me your linkedin contact.
Thanks
RE: Crankcase cooling
Here is my public profile on linkedin:
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Gurmeet
Gurmeet
Time is an illusion. Now is the only thing there is.