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Aerodynamic and Aero-Acoustic Performance of an Adjustable Pitch Axial Flow Fan

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Advances in Energy and Combustion

Part of the book series: Green Energy and Technology ((GREEN))

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Abstract

To increase the operational regime of an axial flow fan has been of immense focus lately. Variable-pitch rotor blades provide a crucial means of adapting to various inlet flow conditions. The operating envelope of an axial flow fan is characterized by flow instabilities. Experiments were conducted on a six-bladed scaled down version of an inducer-type industrial fan. The performance was evaluated at three different blade pitch configurations of 8, 16, and 22° with a speed variation of 460, 560, 660, 760, 860, and 960 RPM. Static pressure measurement was carried out at the inlet of fan and exit of fan at sampling rate of thirty times the rotor order of maximum RPM. Sound pressure was measured at the inlet of test facility. Experiments conducted revealed that with increase in the pitch angle, flow rate, and static pressure rise increases but the trend remains nonlinear, exception being the low flow rates operating regime. Total efficiency increased and then decreased with increase in pitch angle. Noise levels were highest at high pitch angles and low flow rates indicating the existence of instabilities in the system. The presence of high amplitude pressure fluctuations was confirmed by power spectral density plots of static pressure and microphones data. The dominant frequency of 66 Hz appeared at RPM of 860 at near to fully closed operation of exit throttle. Other frequencies 22 Hz and 45 Hz were found to be dominant at lower speeds.

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Abbreviations

B:

Number of blades

BPF:

Blade passage frequency

\(C_{a}\) :

Axial flow velocity (m/s)

\(C_{d}\) :

Discharge coefficient of bell mouth 0.98 assumed

D :

Diameter of the casing

FSP:

Fan static pressure

N :

Rotor speed in revolutions per minute

\(N_{d}\) :

Non dimensional speed

\(N_{\text{ref}}\) :

Reference or designed 960 RPM

OASPL:

Overall sound pressure level in decibel (dB)

P :

Static pressure in Pascal

\(\Delta P\) :

Static pressure rise in Pascal (SPR)

\(\dot{P}\) :

Power in Watts

RO:

Rotor order N/60

RPM:

Revolutions per minute

U:

Blade velocity at mean (m/s)

V:

Voltage in Volts

i :

Current in Ampere

α :

Blade pitch angle in degree

\(\eta_{m}\) :

Mechanical efficiency of motor

\(\eta_{t}\) :

Total to total efficiency

\(\forall\) :

Volumetric flow rate in m3/s

\(\emptyset\) :

Flow coefficient at mean

\(\Psi\) :

Work done coefficient at mean

1:

Inlet of the fan

2:

Outlet of the fan

ref:

Reference Pressure for air (20 μ Pa)

rms:

Root mean square

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Acknowledgements

The work was carried out using the axial flow fan facility developed and located within National Wind Tunnel Facility (NWTF) premises at IIT Kanpur. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of Head NWTF for facilitating the current research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Kanpur, India

    Rajat Arora, Ramraj H. Sundararaj, T. Chandrasekar, Sharad Saxena & Abhijit Kushari

Authors
  1. Rajat Arora
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  2. Ramraj H. Sundararaj
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  3. T. Chandrasekar
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  4. Sharad Saxena
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  5. Abhijit Kushari
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Abhijit Kushari .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Ashwani K. Gupta

  2. Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Ashoke De

  3. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Suresh K. Aggarwal

  4. Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Abhijit Kushari

  5. Analytic and Computational Research, Inc., Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Akshai K. Runchal

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Arora, R., Sundararaj, R.H., Chandrasekar, T., Saxena, S., Kushari, A. (2022). Aerodynamic and Aero-Acoustic Performance of an Adjustable Pitch Axial Flow Fan. In: Gupta, A.K., De, A., Aggarwal, S.K., Kushari, A., Runchal, A.K. (eds) Advances in Energy and Combustion. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2648-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2648-7_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-16-2647-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-16-2648-7

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