Design Method for the Volute Profile of a Squirrel Cage Fan With Space Limitation

Abstract

The uncontinuous volute profile (UVP) is widely used in the squirrel cage fan to meet the space limitation in the air conditioning system. However, it usually causes an obvious performance drop due to the unreasonable impeller–volute interaction. This paper employs two improved design methods, i.e., downsized volute profile (DVP) and partial flow volute profile (PVP), to enhance the aerodynamic performance of the fan installed in a limited space. Experimental results validate the positive effects of these two design methods on the aerodynamic performance. The results obtained by the flow simulation reveal that the pressure field inside the fan with the improved volute profiles is much more uniform than that with the UVP; thus, the improved volute profiles are beneficial for the increase of the fan pressure rise and the reduction of the flow loss. For the investigated fan, it is suggested that the design method of the DVP is more suitable for slight space limitation, while the design method of the PVP is more suitable for significant space limitation.

Effects of cut volute profile on squirrel cage fan performance and flow field

“…12 According to our preliminary results, positive effects on the fan performance are only possible when the cut position and secondary clearance are within a specific range. We speculated that the Du and d s of the cut schemes investigated by them exceeded this effective range, thus negatively affecting fan performance.…”

“…The deviation between calculated pressure and experimental data is less than 10% of the measured value, which was common in the previous studies. 12,22 To the knowledge of authors, this deviation was mainly induced by geometric differences between actual fan and simulation model. On the one hand, complicated geometry structures (such as motor and motor brackets) were simplified or even omitted in the simulated model to improve the mesh quality.…”

“…Hayashi et al 11 compared several profile schemes and concluded that cutting the profile did not affect the performance, but the results from Wen et al 12 indicated that the cut profile results in a reduction in total pressure and efficiency. These opposite conclusions might have been caused by the differences in profile design parameters and fan operation conditions between the two respective studies.…”

Aerodynamic Optimization of Squirrel-Cage Fan with Dual Inlet

“…The response surface can be constructed with the data obtained by numerical simulations or experiments and the optimum design point can be found on the response surface. Even though this optimization technique is invented for empirical correlation of experimental data, it has been widely used in the optimization filed to decrease the test number of experiments [17].…”

“…What's more, parameters of volute play an important role in the performance of centrifugal fan. Based on numerical simulation, the influence of location and radius of volute tongue on the efficiency was studied using response surface method [17][18]. Volute tongue's gap and inclination angle were also optimized with the same method [19].…”