Compressors are machines that compress gas or air and used in several applications. One of their common uses at home is in refrigerators, air conditioners as well as heat pumps. The industrial applications of these machines are too many to list.

Compression is achieved through the reduction of the volume that the air occupies and the side effect of this is temperature increment. The higher the compression ratio the higher the temperature tends to rise. However manufacturers put this into consideration and have devised several ways of counteracting this problem. One of them is by designing them to compress on a stage by stage basis while concurrently cooling the gas. Compression ratio is the ratio of the maximum to minimum volume in the cylinder of an internal-combustion engine.

It is important to know that there are three major types of these machines and each one of them does achieve a different compression ratio. In addition to that, the horsepower that every individual type can achieve ranges from one up to several thousand units. Some of these machines require fuel in order to operate while others do not. The following are the three basic types of compressors available on the market;

A Reciprocating Compressor

A reciprocating compressor is a device that increases the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume. It is also known as a piston compressor because it uses pistons driven by a crankshaft to deliver gases at high pressure. The intake air enters the suction pipe and then moves into the compression cylinder where it gets pressurized by a piston driven in a reciprocating motion through a crankshaft and then discharged. This type of a compressor is normally used in natural gas processing plants, oil refineries, chemical plants as well as gas pipelines.

A Rotary Screw Compressor

This is a kind of an air compressor that works through a rotary-type positive displacement mechanism. It is often used to replace reciprocating compressors where huge amounts of high pressure gas are required either to operate a high-power gas tool or for a large industrial application. The compression mechanism of this type of a machine is a constant sweeping motion that leaves little or no room for pulsation flow as it happens with piston compressors.

Axial Compressor

An axial compressor is a rotating airfoil-based compressor with the capability to constantly compress gases. The gas essentially flows parallel to the axis of rotation, a characteristic that makes it different from other rotating compressors. The energy level of the gas increases as it moves through the compressor because of the rotor blades which exerts a rotating force on it. The stationary blades slow the gas converting the circumferential component of motion into pressure. This type of compressor is highly efficient and can achieve a high mass flow rate. They are used in jet engines, power stations as well as high speed vessel engines. These machines are of high performance, high reliability and often operate flexibly no wander they are also used in aerospace engines.