The Performance Analysis Method with New Pressure Loss and Leakage Flow Models of Regenerative Blower

Abstract

For efficient design process of regenerative blower, the present study provides new generalized pressure and leakage flow loss models, which can be used in the performance analysis method of regenerative blower. The present performance analysis on 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 generalized from the related fluid mechanics correlations which can be expressed in terms of blower design variables. The present performance analysis method is applied to four existing models for verifying its prediction accuracy, and the prediction and the test results agreed well within a few percentage of relative error. Furthermore, the present performance analysis method is 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 agreed well with the test result and also with the CFD simulation results. From the comparison results, the present performance analysis method is shown to be suitable for the actual design practice of regenerative blower.

Regenerative flow pumps, blowers and compressors – A review

“…Researchers have used blade numbers varying from as low as 12 16 to as high as 150 16,21 These are extreme numbers but most of the other researchers used blade numbers in the range of and around 30–50. 6,8,9,19,20,22–45 No particular trend is observed indicating the dependency of the number of blades on the working fluid. Table 1 shows the number of blades investigated by various researchers.…”

“…Raheel, 9 Shimosaka and Yamazaki, 16 Badami and Mura, 31 Badami and Mura, 32 Lee and Kil, 33 Lee et al, 38 Zhang et al, 41 Nejad et al, 6 Zhang et al, 42 Pei et al, 44 Zhang et al, 45 Raheel and Engeda. 50 150-200…”

“…They also found that pump configuration with radial inlet and outlet demonstrated better performance. Lee et al 38 proposed new methods to estimate pressure loss and leakage inside a regenerative blower. They also compared the results with CFD analysis of the blowers and found CFD to be quite useful.…”

“…Quail et al, 25,27,28,30 Badami and Mura, 32 Mekhail et al, 52 Griffini et al, 56 Zhang et al, 41 and Fathi et al 43 have used a steady flow model. Raheel, 9 Karanth and Sharma, 34 Karanth et al, 36 Maity et al, 37 Lee and Kil, 33 Jang and Jeon, 35 Lee et al, 38 Nejad et al, 6 Jeon et al, 18 Pei et al, 44 and Zhang et al 45 used unsteady flow models. Nejadrajabali et al 40 used a quasi-steady flow model.…”

“…The optimized function is usually the 40 " Total pressure Mass flow rate RANS, Frozen rotor k-e, k-x SST Zhang et al 41 " Total pressure Velocity RANS, k-x, SST Nejad et al 6 " Total pressure Mass flow rate CFX, RANS frozen rotor, k-e, k-x SST Fathi et al 43 " Mass flow rate Pressure outlet Reynolds Stress Model Jeon et al 18 " Atmospheric pressure Mass flow rate No slip CFX, RANS, SST Pei et al 44 " " Velocity obtained from experiments CFX RANS, SST, k-x Zhang et al 45 " " " 3D, unsteady, SST, k-x efficiency or the discharge pressure. The parameters varied are the impeller size, 16,23,33,38,51 blade inlet and exit angles 6,19,23,32,39-42,46,52,55 that ranged from 0 � to 90 � : blade shape 6,9,17-19,31,39,47 varied among radial, forward swept, backward swept, twisted, symmetric, asymmetric, chevron as well as S-Shaped blade thickness, 18,35 rotational speed 6,16,20,26,[31][32][33]38,43,47,55 varied from 1450 to 25,000 rpm and stripper angle 20,29,44 varied from 270 to 344 � . No optimization study used any of the established engineering optimization techniques.…”