Two Way Coupling of CFD Conjugate Heat Transfer Simulation with Solid Thermal Expansion in a Twin Screw Compressor

Gas temperature changes due to compression can cause non-uniform thermal expansion in the compressor hardware, potentially impacting both its performance and lifespan. This paper proposes a fully-coupled simulation approach that incorporates gas compression, conjugate heat transfer (CHT), and solid thermal expansion. We will describe in detail the complete procedure for solving a two-way coupled computational fluid dynamics (CFD), conjugate heat transfer, and solid thermal expansion, including the technical challenges and proposed solutions. This approach has been applied to a twin screw compressor case. The simulation results indicate that the solid thermal expansion has significant impact on the performance of the compressor. This paper will also demonstrate that the approaches used are robust, fast, user friendly, making them readily applicable to industrial compressor systems.