Numerical Simulation of the Effect of the Tip Clearance Flow on Rotor-Stator Interaction Tone Noise in Axial-Flow Fan

Abstract

Abstract The present study is focused on the sound generation due to the rotor tip clearance flow interaction with stator in an axial flow fan. A hybrid URANS/Goldstein’s equations method is applied to calculate the unsteady flow and tone noise in a high loaded axial-flow fan with different rotor tip clearance. The numerical simulation results show that the main sound sources of fan tip clearance tone noise are concentrated in the leading edge of downstream stator blades. It is found that when the rotor tip clearance increases from zero to 2.5 mm (0.94% relative blade height), the mass flow of the fan decreases by about 2% and the efficiency of the fan decreases by about 1 percentage, and the sound power level at 1BPF forward tone increases by 1.47dB, and that of backward tone increases by 0.65dB. However, the influence of tip clearance on the tone noise intensity at 2BPF and 3BPF is more complex, and the variation range is less than 1dB. It is found that the wake width and wake strength at the rotor exit increase with the increase of tip clearance. The tip secondary flow caused by rotor clearance seriously affects the circumferential inhomogeneity of stator leading edge inflow conditions.