An integrated CFD and experimental study of the in-line fan

Abstract

This study analyzes the flow flied and the guide vane associated with an in-line fan by an integrated numerical and experimental investigation. At first, the flow field associated with the fan is simulated by using a commercial CFD code Fluent with the finite volume method. In addition, the guiding vane profile is imposed and modified by examining characteristics of flow field. An appropriate guiding vane with high-performance and low-noise feature can be achieved after several design iterations. To manufacture the mock-up for experimental verification, the designed fan is expressed in the CAD/CAM format for the rapid-prototype technique. Moreover, a set of relations correlating the performance and noise of this fan prototype are executed with the aids of AMCA test chamber and semi-anechoic chamber, respectively. Consequently, the feasibility of design scheme and numerical system can be verified according to these experimental results. In summary, this work provides a systematic scheme for designing and analyzing the in-line fan.