Abstract
Industrial fans are subject to European Union energy labeling and Ecodesign requirements. By using more efficient industrial fans, Europe will save 34 TWh and avoid 16 million tones of CO2 emissions annually by 2020 [1]. In this paper, the effect of the clearance gap between the impeller and the volute, on the performance of a centrifugal fan was investigated using open source CFD software OpenFOAM [2]. An automized loop with RANS and data post-processing is set up using Matlab, for allowing a large number of parameter variations. We conducted numerical analysis for all operating points, where starting points are optimal impellers for the whole range of specific speeds [3], [4]. The effect of volute angle and geometrical parameters related to the tongue [5], on total pressure loss, static pressure recovery coefficient and on efficiency are presented.
Highlights
Many articles related to centrifugal fans have studied and optimized only the fan impeller and some of them treat the fan as a whole unit, while the study of the spiral casing is less well-known
Since in this study we presented the effect of 3 different parameters, in particular, the effect of the clearance gap has to be shown as a parameter which is a function of the above three parameters sz = f(α, rz, φz)
The radius of the tongue has no effect on the total efficiency, on static pressure recovery coefficient and on total pressure loss coefficient of the spiral casing
Summary
Many articles related to centrifugal fans have studied and optimized only the fan impeller and some of them treat the fan as a whole unit, while the study of the spiral casing is less well-known. Appropriate design of the fan spiral casing has significant meaning to centrifugal fan performance. For this reason, this study of the effect of the clearance gap has been conducted, which should lead to better advanced recommendations for the shape of the spiral casing. Because we obtain the boundary of the volute from the streamline, again it yields, tg(α) = rddrφ; dr r dφ tg(α) dφ tg(α2).
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