Cooling chiller drive mechanism with liquid refrigerant

摘要

A liquid chiller includes a compressor (12) that has a motor driven shaft (48) supported by at least one rolling element bearing (50a, 50b, 52) that is lubricated by liquid refrigerant in the absence of oil. The rolling elements (51a, 51b, 53) of the at least one rolling element bearing are fabricated from a non-metallic material and supplied with liquid refrigerant from a source (74) that is discrete from the chiller condenser (14) and evaporator (16) in such a way that a portion of the liquid refrigerant is vaporised when absorbing heat from the at least one rolling element bearing.