Numerical simulation of air flow field in high-pressure fan with splitter blades

Abstract

For a deeper understanding of the flow characteristics in the high-pressure centrifugal blower of a fan of Model 9-26 with splitter blades, a three dimensional (3-D) numerical simulation of air flows in the fan was conducted with FLUENT software. The standard k-? turbulent model and unstructured grids were used. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results showed that the performance of a fan could be improved by adding the splitter blades in the channel among the leaf blades. Under operational conditions, with the presence of splitter blades, the air flow rate of the fan increased about 5% and the total pressure at the outlet of the fan increased about 10% on average. It was also found that the length of the splitter blades affected the air flow and pressure drop. There is an optimal value for the length. The simulation results provide helpful information for improving the fan performance.

Keywords

centrifugal fan / numerical simulation / computational fluid dynamics (CFD) / splitter blade / flow field