page_title: Roots-type supercharger
section_title: Technical considerations
hierarchical_section_title: Roots-type supercharger / Technical considerations
context_page_description: The Roots-type blower is a positive displacement lobe pump which operates by pumping a fluid with a pair of meshing lobes resembling a set of stretched gears. Fluid is trapped in pockets surrounding the lobes and carried from the intake side to the exhaust. The most common application of the Roots-type blower has been as the induction device on two-stroke diesel engines, such as those produced by Detroit Diesel and Electro-Motive Diesel. Roots-type blowers are also used to supercharge Otto cycle engines, with the blower being driven from the engine's crankshaft via a toothed or V-belt, a roller chain or a gear train.
  The Roots-type blower is named after American inventors and brothers Philander and Francis Marion Roots, founders of the Roots Blower Company of Connersville, Indiana USA, who patented the basic design in 1860 as an air pump for use in blast furnaces and other industrial applications. In 1900, Gottlieb Daimler included a Roots-style blower in a patented engine design, making the Roots-type blower the oldest of the various designs now available.
context_section_description: The simplest form of a Roots blower has cycloidal rotors, constructed of alternating tangential sections of hypocycloidal and epicycloidal curves. For a two-lobed rotor, the smaller generating circles are one-quarter the diameter of the larger. Real Roots blowers may have more complex profiles for increased efficiency. The lobes on one rotor will not drive the other rotor with minimal free play in all positions, so that a separate pair of gears provide the phasing of the lobes.
  Because rotary lobe pumps need to maintain a clearance between the lobes, a single stage Roots blower can pump gas across only a limited pressure differential. If the pump is used beyond its specification, the compression of the gas generates enough heat so that the lobes expand to the point that they jam, damaging the pump.
  Roots pumps are capable of pumping large volumes but, as they only achieve moderate compression, it is not uncommon to see multiple Roots blower stages, frequently with heat exchangers (intercoolers) in between to cool the gas. The lack of oil on the pumping surfaces allows the pumps to work in environments where contamination control is important. The high pumping rate for hydrocarbons allows the Roots pump to provide an effective isolation between oiled pumps, such as rotary compression pumps, and the vacuum chamber.
  A variant uses claw-shaped rotors for higher compression.
  The Roots-type blower may achieve an efficiency of approximately 70% while achieving a maximum pressure ratio of two. Higher pressure ratios are achievable but at decreasing efficiency. Because a Roots-type blower pumps air in discrete pulses (unlike a screw compressor), pulsation noise and turbulence may be transmitted downstream. If not properly managed (through outlet piping geometry) or accounted for (by structural reinforcement of downstream components), the resulting pulsations can cause fluid cavitation and/or damage to components downstream of the blower.
caption: A three-lobed Roots blower. (Open animation)