No abstract

In order to clarify the natures of a rotating stall cell, the experimental investigation was carded out in a high specific-speed diagonal flow fan. The pressure field on the casing wall and the velocity fields at the rotor inlet and outlet were measured under rotating stall condition with a fast response pressure transducer and a single slant hot-wire probe, respectively. The data were processed using the "Double Phase-Locked Averaging (DPLA)" technique, which enabled to obtain the unsteady flow field with a rotating stall cell in the relative co-ordinate system fixed to the rotor. As a result, the structure and behavior of the rotating stall cell in a high specific-speed diagonal flow fan were shown.

The behavior of tip vortex in an axial fan without casing wall (called open axial fan) was discussed and analyzed. The velocity measurement was performed by using two-compon ents Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) system. The detailed velocity and vorticity distribution inside blade passage and downstream of rotor were obtained. Thus the structure of tip vortex and its behavior were graphically visualized by experimental fluid dynamics (EFD). The tip vortex flow trace was indicated with the calculation of vorticity. As a result, it was found that tip vortex was generated at blade tip region near leading edge and it extended to downstream of blade exit with its core tending inward to hub direction. In addition, leading edge vortex was also found at the forepart of the experimental open fan.

In order to clarify the effect of rotor inlet geometry of half-ducted propeller fan on performance and velocity fields at rotor outlet, the experimental investigation was carried out using a hotwire anemometer. Three types of inlet geometry were tested. The first type is the one that the rotor blade tip is fully covered by a casing. The second is that the front one-third part of blade tip is opened and the rest is covered. The third is that the front two-thirds are opened and the rest is covered. Fan test and internal flow measurement at rotor outlet were conducted about three types of inlet geometry. At the internal flow measurement, a single slant hotwire probe was used and a periodical multisampling technique was adopted to obtain the three-dimensional velocity distributions. From the results of fan test, the pressure-rise characteristic drops at high flowrate region and the stall point shifts to high flowrate region, when the opened area of blade tip increases. From the results of velocity distributions at rotor outlet, the region with high axial velocity moves to radial inwards, the circumferential velocity near blade tip becomes high, and the flow field turns to radial outward, when the opened area increases.

In order to clarify the effect of tip clearance (TC) size on fan performance and the flow field at rotor outlet in a small semi-open axial fan, the experimental investigation was carried out. The tip diameter of test fan rotor was 180mm and test TC sizes were 1mm (TC=1mm) and 4mm (TC=4mm). Fan characteristics tests were carried out for two cases of TC size and three-dimensional velocity fields at rotor outlet were measured using a single slant hot-wire probe at four flow-rate conditions. As a result, it was found that the pressure -flow-rate characteristics curves for two cases showed almost the same tendency. However, the ensemble averaged velocity profiles along radial measurement stations of TC=4mm largely changed compared with that of TC=1mm in cases of small flow-rate condition. From the phase-locked averaging results, it was also found that the vortex existed in the rotor outlet flow field of high flow-rate condition for each TC case. Compared with the vortices for TC=1mm and TC=4mm, the vortex for TC=4mm was stronger than that for TC=1mm.