Low-pressure axial fan impellers designed according to the principle of equal specific work of all elementary stages have blades whose profile near the fan hub is under a significantly larger inclination angle than at the impeller periphery. In order to minimize the spatial curvature of the fan blades and the fan hub length, impeller blades of low-pressure axial fans can be designed with different specific work of elementary stages, so that the specific work of elementary stages is smaller at the hub than at the periphery. This paper presents the operating characteristics of a low-pressure reversible axial fan with straight blade profiles, designed with different specific work of elementary stages. The fan was tested on a standard test rig, with air intake loading on the suction side of the fan

In the increasing need for energy saving worldwide, the designing process of turbomachinery, as an essential part of thermal and hydroenergy systems, goes in the direction of enlarging efficiency. Therefore, the optimization of turbomachinery designing strongly affects the energy efficiency of the entire system. In the designing process of turbomachinery blade profiling, the model of axisymmetric fluid flows is commonly used in technical practice, even though this model suits only the profile cascades with infinite number of infinitely thin blades. The actual flow in turbomachinery profile cascades is not axisymmetric, and it can be fictively derived into the axisymmetric flow by averaging flow parameters in the blade passages according to the circular coordinate. Using numerical simulations of flow in turbomachinery runners, its operating parameters can be preliminarily determined. Furthermore, using the numerically obtained flow parameters in the blade passages, averaged axisymmetric flow surfaces in blade profile cascades can also be determined. The method of determination of averaged flow parameters and averaged meridian streamlines is presented in this paper, using the integral continuity equation for averaged flow parameters. With thus obtained results, every designer can be able to compare the obtained averaged flow surfaces with axisymmetric flow surfaces, as well as the specific work of elementary stages, which are used in the procedure of blade designing. Numerical simulations of flow in an exemplary axial flow pump, used as a part of the thermal power plant cooling system, were performed using Ansys CFX. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. TR33040: Revitalization of existing and designing new micro and mini hydropower plants (from 100 kW to 1000 kW) in the territory of South and Southeast Serbia