Experimental Characterization of the Influence of Auxiliary Devices on the Noise Generated by Industrial Centrifugal Fan and Correlation to the Geometrical and Fluid Dynamic Parameters

Author(s):  
M. Cadorin ◽  
M. Pinelli ◽  
E. Podeschi ◽  
F. Pompoli ◽  
A. Zanardi

In recent years, the aerodynamic noise generated by centrifugal fans is receiving increasing attention because of strict environmental noise level restrictions and customer demands. The noise generated by fans is due to aerodynamic sources and to other several sources, such as, for instance, by the fan drive, by bearings and gearing, and, when present, by the inverter. Additional noise sources can be also due to structural resonance effects induced by periodic forces associated with the blade passing frequency or vortex shedding. Usually, these additional noise sources are dominated by aerodynamic noise generated by the fan, in particular when the intake and outlet of the fan are free. On the other side, if fan intake and outlet are ducted, the additional sources can relevantly contribute to overall sound generation. In this paper, an experimental characterization of the noise generated by industrial centrifugal fans when both inlet and outlet are ducted is presented. To do this, an experimental facility has been design and set up, and the sound power measured by means of the procedures outlined in the ISO 3746 international standard. A number of different type of centrifugal fan (straight-, forward- and backward blade) in different working conditions were tested, resulting in 133 different runs. These amount of data were then processed and a general formula for fan noise estimation obtained as a function of the geometrical and fluid dynamic parameters is derived. Moreover, specific coefficients with respect to blade geometry for the determination of the A-weighted frequency spectrum are presented. Finally, auxiliary devices or other features, such as inverter, thickness of the casing, acoustic insulation, electric motor shaft, are analyzed and some general rules to estimate their influence on sound power level quantified.

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 6639
Author(s):  
Sangbeom Woo ◽  
Andrea Vacca

This paper presents the experimental characterization of the vibroacoustic fields and the evaluation of noise performances of hydraulic pumps. Research on hydraulic pump noise has traditionally focused on the fluid-borne noise sources, and very often the analyses of vibration and noise have been performed focusing on a few local points. This trend results in the lack of investigation on the overall behaviors of vibroacoustic fields of hydraulic pumps, and it has been one of the obstacles to understand the complete mechanisms of noise generation. Moreover, despite the existence of the ISO standards for the determination of noise levels, diverse metrics have been used for the evaluation of noise performances of the pumps, but the adequacy of these metrics has not been carefully examined. In this respect, this paper aims at introducing a way to characterize and interpret the measured vibroacoustic field and providing proper methods which are also capable of applying the ISO standards for the fair assessment of pump noise performances. For the characterization of the vibroacoustic field, operational deflection shapes (ODS) and corresponding radiated sound fields are visualized at harmonics of the pumping frequency by using a spectral analysis. Observations are made regarding the motions of the pump and its mounting plate and the resultant radiated noise, depending on the frequency, as well as their correlation. A numerical analysis using the Rayleigh integral equation is also performed to further investigate the contribution of the mounting plate motion on the noise radiation. For the evaluation of noise performance, two different units are tested at multiple operating conditions, and comparisons are made based on their measured sound power levels (SWLs) and sound pressure levels (SPLs). The results emphasize the importance of SWL measurement for the fair noise performance evaluation, and the two methods are proposed as practices to determine the minimum number of measurement points for practicability and to have reliable sound power determination for hydraulic pumps.


Author(s):  
Jian-Cheng Cai ◽  
Da-Tong Qi ◽  
Yong-Hai Zhang

Tonal noise constitutes the major part of the overall fan noise, especially the blade passing frequency (BPF) noise which is generally the most dominant component. This paper studies the BPF tonal noise of a centrifugal fan, including the blade noise, casing aerodynamic noise, and casing structural noise caused by the flow-induced casing vibration. Firstly, generation mechanism and propagation process of fan noise were discussed and the measured spectra of fan noise and casing vibration were presented. Secondly, a fully 3-D transient simulation of the internal flow field of the centrifugal fan was carried out by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. The results revealed that the flow interactions between the impeller and the volute casing caused periodic pressure fluctuations on the solid walls of the impeller and casing. This pressure fluctuation induces aerodynamic noise radiation as dipole sources, as well as structural vibration as force excitations. Thirdly, using the acoustic analogy theory, the aeroacoustic dipole sources on the casing and blade surface were extracted. The BPF casing and blade aerodynamic sound radiation were solved by the boundary element method (BEM) taking into account the scattering effect of the casing structure. Finally, the casing structural noise was studied. The casing forced vibration and sound radiation under the excitation of BPF pressure fluctuation were calculated by finite element method (FEM) and BEM, respectively. The result indicates that at the studied flow rate, the sound power levels of the casing aerodynamic noise, blade aerodynamic noise and casing structural noise are 103 dB, 91 dB and 79 dB with the reference sound power of 1×10−12 W, respectively.


Author(s):  
Qiang Kang ◽  
Shuguang Zuo ◽  
Kaijun Wei

The regenerative flow compressor used in fuel-cell cars generates high aerodynamic noise, which is the main source of noise. Compared with the research on centrifugal or axial turbomachinery, research on the noise of regenerative flow compressors is far from adequate. This paper presents the on-going work on it at Tongji University based on both experimental and computational works. In this study, a three-dimensional unsteady computational fluid dynamic model of the compressor was constructed with the large eddy approach. The pressure fluctuation, vortex noise source and Ffowcs William-Hawkings (FW-H) method were used to analyze the characteristics of the aerodynamic noise sources. Additionally, the far-field aerodynamic noise generated by the internal flow of the compressor was predicted using the aeroacoustic finite element method. The simulation results were validated with the experimental data. It was found that combining the fluid dynamic model and aeroacoustic finite element analysis promising results for aerodynamic noise prediction of compressors could be produced. The effects of the impeller parameters on the aerodynamic noise of the compressor were also studied.


Author(s):  
Liu Chen ◽  
Cao Yipeng ◽  
Sun Wenjian ◽  
Zhang Wenping ◽  
Ming Pingjian ◽  
...  

Turbocharger compressor aerodynamic noise has been one of the major noise sources of diesel engine. It is necessary to study the characteristics of turbocharger fluid flow and radiation noise for its effective noise control. In this paper, a new for predicting compressor aerodynamic noise is presented, which combined the computational fluid dynamic (CFD) and indirect boundary element method (IBEM). The unsteady viscous flow in compressor was simulated based on the finite volume method. In addition, the periodic pressure fluctuation of the rotor inlet and blades were used to compressor radiation noise field simulation by indirect boundary element method. In order to prove the feasibility of numerical simulation, the acoustics experimental device for compressor aerodynamic noise experiment was built and the sound pressure of turbocharger were tested. The trend of simulation results and amplitude level in blade passing frequency (BPF) coincide with the experiment results. It indicates that the coupling method is more effective and accurate in turbocharger noise prediction.


1999 ◽  
Vol 121 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Velarde-Sua´rez ◽  
Carlos Santolaria-Morros ◽  
Rafael Ballesteros-Tajadura

In this paper, an aeroacoustic study on a forward-curved blades centrifugal fan has been carried out. As a first step, the fan performance curves, i.e., total pressure, power, efficiency and sound power level versus flow rate were obtained, showing its unstable behavior over a wide operating range. Second, the fan sound power level spectra for several working conditions were determined. For this purpose a normalized installation for testing in laboratory was designed and constructed. Afterwards, the velocity and pressure fields, both at the inlet and outlet planes of the impeller were measured using hot wire probes and pressure transducers, for different operating conditions. Finally, the aeroacoustic behavior of the fan was determined measuring the vorticity field at the impeller outlet, which is known to be related to tonal noise generation. This relation is worked out using the theory of vortex sound, developed by several authors during the second half of this century. The paper shows that the generation of tonal noise is produced at the blade passing frequency and it increases with the flow rate. Although the main contribution to fan noise generation is due to mechanical sources, the bands in which aerodynamic noise is generated by these fans correspond to frequencies especially unpleasant to the human ear. Therefore, the research presented in this paper may be of considerable interest, establishing a starting point for the design of quieter and more efficient fans.


Author(s):  
Daniel Fernandez Comesaña ◽  
Eduardo Latorre Iglesias ◽  
Malcolm Smith ◽  
Hans-Elias de Bree

Reducing the aerodynamic noise produced by turbulent flow exciting a car window is one of the current noise control challenges in the automotive industry. Flow separation and later reattachment into a turbulent boundary layer and turbulent wake occur because of flow over the A-pillar and the wing mirror. Experiments have been carried out to represent an idealised wing mirror noise problem using flow over a half cylinder exciting a flat plate. A scanning P-U (pressure-particle velocity) probe was used to measure various aspects of the window response and sound radiation, including the energy distribution of the vibrating surface, the total radiated sound power and hence the radiation efficiency. In addition, experimental results showed that the operational deflection shapes of the car window can be visualized by using scanning particle velocity measurements, obtaining similar results as with step-by-step measurements using a roving accelerometer. The scanning sound intensity maps also proved to be helpful for detecting weaknesses of the initial experimental setup as part of the experimental optimization.


2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Ballesteros-Tajadura ◽  
Sandra Velarde-Sua´rez ◽  
Juan Pablo Hurtado-Cruz ◽  
Bruno Pereiras-Garci´a

Centrifugal fans are widely used in several applications and, in some cases, the noise generated by these machines has become a serious problem. Usually, the centrifugal fan noise is dominated by tones at the blade passage frequency and its higher harmonics. This is a consequence of the strong interaction between the flow discharged from the impeller and the volute tongue. The purpose of this study is to develop a prediction method for the noise generated by a centrifugal fan. A three-dimensional numerical simulation of the complete unsteady flow on the whole impeller-volute configuration has been carried out using the computational fluid dynamics code FLUENT®. The unsteady forces applied by the fan blades to the fluid are obtained from the data provided by the simulation. The Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings model extension of Lighthill’s analogy predicts the aerodynamic noise generated by the centrifugal fan from these unsteady forces. Also, the noise generated by the fan has been measured experimentally, and the experimental results have been compared to the numerical results in order to validate the aerodynamic noise prediction methodology. A good agreement has been found between the numerical and the experimental results.


2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Ballesteros-Tajadura ◽  
Sandra Velarde-Suárez ◽  
Juan Pablo Hurtado-Cruz

Centrifugal fans are widely used in several applications, and in some cases, the noise generated by these machines has become a serious problem. The centrifugal fan noise is frequently dominated by tones at the blade passing frequency as a consequence of the strong interaction between the flow discharged from the impeller and the volute tongue. In this study, a previously published aeroacoustic prediction methodology (Cho, Y., and Moon, Y.J., 2003, “Discrete Noise Prediction of Variable Pitch Cross-Flow Fans by Unsteady Navier-Stokes Computations,” ASME J. Fluids Eng., 125, pp. 543–550) has been extended to three-dimensional turbulent flow in order to predict the noise generated by a centrifugal fan. A three-dimensional numerical simulation of the complete unsteady flow on the whole impeller-volute configuration has been carried out using the computational fluid dynamics code FLUENT®. The unsteady forces applied by the fan blades to the fluid are obtained from the data provided by the simulation. The Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings model extension of Lighthill’s analogy has been used to predict the aerodynamic noise generated by the centrifugal fan from these unsteady forces. Also, the noise generated by the fan has been measured experimentally, and the experimental results have been compared to the numerical results in order to validate the aerodynamic noise prediction methodology. Reasonable agreement has been found between the numerical and the experimental results.


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