Scroll Compressors

A scroll compressor (the other name spiral compressor), is a device for compressing air or refrigerant. Many residential central HP and AC systems uses a scroll compressor instead of the more traditional rotary and reciprocating compressors.

A scroll compressor uses two interleaving scrolls to pump, compress or pressurize fluids such as liquids and gases. Therefore, the vane geometry may be involute, Archimedean spiral, or hybrid curves.

Often, one of the scrolls is fixed, while the other orbits eccentrically without rotating, thereby trapping and pumping or compressing pockets of fluid between the scrolls. Another method for producing the compression motion is co-rotating the scrolls, in synchronous motion, but with offset centers of rotation. The relative motion is the same as if one were orbiting.