Demand Cooling + Liquid and Vapor Injection

Trevor Matthews is back and dropping more compressor knowledge on us. This time, he talks about demand cooling and liquid and vapor injection.

In low-temperature applications, the discharge temperature would get very high and lead to oil breakdown and thermal overload, so demand cooling is a means of cooling the compressor. Demand cooling injects saturated refrigerant into the compressor body to cool it down. You’re not jamming liquid into the compressor; the refrigerant flashes, which achieves a cooling effect.

A demand cooling system consists of a module, temperature probe, liquid line solenoid valve, and injection valve. On the Discus compressors, the sensor will go in the port in the compressor head. When installing these, it is important to make sure high-quality goes to the valve. It’s normal to have some frost at the outlet during operation; look for frost to make sure the demand cooling system is working properly.

Scroll compressors use liquid and vapor injection almost exclusively nowadays. However, there is a difference between liquid and vapor injection for scroll compressors. A liquid injection system helps the compressor avoid high discharge temperatures (and high compression ratios). The vapor injection improves capacity and efficiency.

When troubleshooting demand cooling or liquid/vapor injection systems, you need to keep a few things in mind. For example, you need to make sure you have the right amount of tees when you retrofit a compressor with a vapor injection system. You may also have to repipe the vapor line and add a DTC (discharge temperature control valves).

Trevor and Bryan also discuss:

• What happens when we change refrigerants
• Return gas temperature and mass flow rate
• Compressor head cooling fans
• Motor operation and spinning indicators
• Visual inspection
• Vapor injection vs. mechanical subcooling
• KVE vs. K4E
• Part replacement
• DTC vs. EEV w/ CoreSense diagnostics

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