The Design, Performance and CFD Analyses of Regenerative Blower used for Fuel Cell System

Abstract

For efficient design of regenerative blower used for fuel cell system, the design and the performance analysis methods of regenerative blower are developed, and CFD modelling and simulation are carried out on the designed blower. The design process of regenerative blower is conducted to determine the geometries of rotating impellers and stationary side channel with several design variables. The performance analysis on the designed blower is made by incorporating momentum exchange theory between impellers and side channel with mean line analysis method, and its pressure loss and leakage flow models are constructed from related fluid mechanics data and correlations which can be expressed in terms of blower design variables. The internal flow field of blower is analysed by using the CFX code, a CFD code specialized for fluid machinery. The present performance analysis method is applied to four existing models for verifying its prediction accuracy, and the comparison between the prediction and the test results are well-agreed with a few percentage of relative error. Furthermore, the present design and performance analysis methods are also applied in developing a new blower used for fuel cell application, and the newly designed blower is manufactured and tested through chamber-type test facility. The performance prediction by the present method is well-agreed with the test and the CFD simulation results. Therefore, from the comparison results, the prediction design and performance analysis methods are shown to be suitable for the actual design practice of regenerative blower.