scholarly journals Effect of Inlet Geometry on Fan Performance and Inlet Flow Fields in a Semi-opened Axial Fan

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pin Liu ◽  
Norimasa Shiomi ◽  
Yoichi Kinoue ◽  
Toshiaki Setoguchi ◽  
Ying-Zi Jin
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Till Heinemann ◽  
Stefan Becker

In their application to air-cooled condensers, axial fans are often subject to the detrimental influence of ambient flow fields at their inlet or outlet. While effects have been investigated mostly under perpendicular cross-flow conditions on fans operating as part of an array in their target design point, this study aims at examining the integral influence of uniform ambient flow fields on a single axial fan over a wide operating range. For this purpose, a wind tunnel fan test rig has been designed and assessed. Multiple angles between uniform ambient flow field and fan axis are examined in their integral influence on the characteristic curve of two distinct industrial axial fans with varying inlet modifications. Increasingly with the fan flow rate, perpendicular inlet cross-flow was found to always have a detrimental influence on fan performance. The straight bladed fan reacted less sensitively than the forward skewed fan, and the adverse cross-flow influence could be reduced with an inlet guard grille and with short conical shroud extensions. Cross-flow at the fan outlet showed potential static fan pressure increases at low flow rates.


2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. Defoe ◽  
M. Etemadi ◽  
D. K. Hall

Applications such as boundary-layer-ingesting (BLI) fans and compressors in turboprop engines require continuous operation with distorted inflow. A low-speed axial fan with incompressible flow is studied in this paper. The objectives are to (1) identify the physical mechanisms which govern the fan response to inflow distortions and (2) determine how fan performance scales as the type and severity of inlet distortion varies at the design flow coefficient. A distributed source term approach to modeling the rotor and stator blade rows is used in numerical simulations in this paper. The model does not include viscous losses so that changes in diffusion factor are the primary focus. Distortions in stagnation pressure and temperature as well as swirl are considered. The key findings are that unless sharp pitchwise gradients in the diffusion response, strong radial flows, or very large distortion magnitudes are present, the response of the blade rows for strong distortions can be predicted by scaling up the response to a weaker distortion. In addition, the response to distortions which are composed of nonuniformities in several inlet quantities can be predicted by summing up the responses to the constituent distortions.


2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 294-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norimasa. Shiomi ◽  
Yoichi Kinoue ◽  
Ying zi Jin ◽  
Toshiaki Setoguchi ◽  
Kenji Kaneko
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Sumit Tambe ◽  
Ugaitz Bartolomé Oseguera ◽  
Arvind Gangoli Rao

Abstract In the pursuit of reducing the fuel burn, future aircraft configurations will feature several types of improved propulsion systems, e.g. embedded engines with boundary layer ingestion, high-bypass ratio engines with short intakes, etc. Depending on the design and phase of flight, the engine fan will encounter inflow distortion of varying strength, and fan performance will be adversely affected. Therefore, investigation of the flow phenomena causing performance losses in fan and distortion interaction is important. This experimental study shows the effect of varying distortion index on four aspects of fan performance: distortion topology, upstream redistribution, performance curve, and flow unsteadiness. A low speed fan is tested under 60° circumferential distortion of varying strength, generated using distortion screens. The flow field in the upstream redistribution region is measured using PIV (planar and stereo). The fan performance is obtained using total pressure measurements. The noise spectra measured by a microphone are used to quantify the unsteadiness in the flow field. The distortion index (DC60) varies linearly with the grid porosity at constant wall thickness and aspect ratio of the grid cells. However, the distortion topology is significantly different as a stream-wise vortex pair appears in distorted flow at higher DC60. The vortices are stronger at higher DC60, but their order of magnitude is much lower than the circulation corresponding to fan itself. The spinner, distortion index and topology significantly affect the upstream redistribution mechanism. The vortex pair redistributes the flow which results in lower asymmetry in the symmetry plane. With increasing distortion, the performance is reduced and the unsteadiness is increased.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pin Liu ◽  
Norimasa Shiomi ◽  
Yoichi Kinoue ◽  
Ying-zi Jin ◽  
Toshiaki Setoguchi

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.


Author(s):  
Siddharth Thakur ◽  
Wanlai Lin ◽  
Jeffrey Wright ◽  
Wei Shyy ◽  
Ron Lievens

A CFD-based computational tool is used to analyze flows in axial fans. Computed results for an axial fan flow field for one particular blade shape are presented; certain global quantities such as the mass-averaged pressure rise and the static efficiency available from test data for different mass flow rates are used to evaluate the trends predicted by the CFD results. The characteristic feature of the fan flow fields presented here is a very low pressure rise; due care is exercised to ensure that grid dependence and numerical dissipation do not smear out the key features of the computed flow fields.


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