A Study of Impeller-Diffuser-Volute Interaction in a Centrifugal Fan

Abstract

This paper reports velocity measurement data in the interaction region between the impeller and vaned diffuser and the results of numerical flow simulation of the whole machine (impeller, vaned diffuser and volute) of a single stage centrifugal fan. Two-dimensional instantaneous velocity measurement is done using particle image velocimetry (PIV). Numerical simulation of impeller-diffuser-volute interaction is performed using CFX-Tascflow commercial code. A frozen rotor simulation model is used for the steady calculation and a rotor-stator simulation model is used for the unsteady calculation using the steady results as an initial guess. The simulation results show that the separated flow regime near the diffuser hub extends to the volute. Comparison between the unsteady computation and those of measurement indicates that the rotor/stator model employed in the simulation predicts essential characteristics of unsteady flow in the centrifugal fan. However, quantitative agreement remains rather poor.

Numerical Analysis of the Whole Field Flow in a Centrifugal Fan for Performance Enhancement - The Effect of Boundary Layer Fences of Different Configurations

“…The validation shows a close agreement between the present numerical model and the experimental model of Meakhail and Park [19] …”

“…A part of the work carried out in the current paper is validated with a paper by Meakhail and Park [19], which explores the study of impeller -diffuser -volute interaction in a centrifugal fan. These authors report measurement data in the region between the impeller and vaned diffuser and have obtained results of numerical flow simulation of the whole machine (impeller, vaned diffuser and volute) of a single stage centrifugal fan.…”

“…The numerical model for the whole field flow calculations is validated by calibrating the results of the current numerical work with the experimental work carried out by Meakhail and Park [19]. The graph shown in figure 3 captures the validation results for the current work with the work cited above.…”

“…The specifications of the fan stage are illustrated in Table 1. The technical paper by Meakhail and Park [19] forms the basis for geometric modeling in the present work. Unstructured meshing technique is adopted for establishing sliding mesh configuration as the analysis is for unsteady fluctuation and is carried out using the CFD code [20].…”

“…The authors wish to acknowledge and thank Tarek Meakhail and Seung O Park [19], for readily giving the centrifugal fan drawing for their numerical modeling. They also wish to thank Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal University, for providing computational resources for undertaking this study.…”