Water-Cooled Oil-Free Air Compressor

Abstract

A water-cooled oil-free air compressor which features compactness and ensures improved productivity and maintainability. The compressor is an oil-free screw compressor which includes a low pressure stage compressor body, an intercooler for water-cooling the compressed air discharged from the low pressure stage compressor body, a high pressure stage compressor body for further compressing the compressed air cooled by the intercooler, and an aftercooler for water-cooling the air discharged from the high pressure stage compressor body. The intercooler and aftercooler each have a plurality of units, all of which are almost equal in shape. A cooler header on each or either of the inlet and outlet sides for compressed air is shared by the units of each cooler.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates to water-cooled oil-free air compressors and more particularly to air compressors which use a cooling device for cooling the air compressed in multiple stages.[0002]Most conventional two-stage oil-free screw compressors which have a low pressure stage compressor body and a high pressure stage compressor body use an intercooler for cooling the air compressed by the low pressure stage compressor body and an aftercooler for cooling the air compressed by the high pressure stage compressor body.[0003]The compressors as described in JP-A No. H8-61271 and JP-A No. H11-22688 are known as water-cooled two-stage compressors having an intercooler and an aftercooler. In the compressor as described in JP-A No. H8-61271, cooling water is first to the aftercooler and then to the intercooler, and in the compressor as described in JP-A No. H11-22688, the cooling water path is branched into a cooling water path for cooling the intercooler...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010]The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and has an object to provide an air compressor which features compressor package compactness and ensures improved productivity and maintainability.

[0028]According to the present invention, coolers can be simplified and it is possible to provide a water-cooled two-stage oil-free air compressor which features compactness and ensures improved productivity and maintainability.

Problems solved by technology

In such a compressor, the space occupied by the coolers and cooler inlet and outlet pipes in the compressor package must be large, which is an impediment to compressor size reduction.

This means that the cooler volume must be large and it is difficult to reduce the overall compressor size.

Furthermore, since the intercooler and aftercooler lie in the compressed air discharge route, there is high pressure air in the air paths inside the coolers.

A large compressor which deals with a large volume of air has a problem that the cooler volume must be large enough as mentioned above, and if a cooler breakdown occurs, its influence will be serious.

Another problem is that as the cooler size is larger, the cooler maneuverability and working efficiency in maintenance including cleaning deteriorate.

Therefore, when the cooler size is increased in order to achieve higher putout (larger air volume) of the air compressor, it may be difficult to reduce the overall compressor size because the coolers are integral with each other.

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