Numerical Investigation on the Effects of Gap Circulating Flow on Blower Performance under Design and Off-Design Conditions

Xu Zhang (), Yuxiang Gong, Xiaochang Chen, Liang Hu, Haibo Xie and Huayong Yang
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Xu Zhang: State Key Laboratory of Fundamental Components of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Yuxiang Gong: Boreasa Technologies Co., Ltd., Hangzhou 310051, China
Xiaochang Chen: Institute of Advanced Machines, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 311106, China
Liang Hu: State Key Laboratory of Fundamental Components of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Haibo Xie: State Key Laboratory of Fundamental Components of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Huayong Yang: State Key Laboratory of Fundamental Components of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 15, 1-26

Abstract: Blowers are widely used in tasks such as ventilation, exhaust, drying, cooling, heat dissipation, or conveying medium, and they usually consume a lot of energy. There is an inevitable gap between the rotating impeller and static volute casing due to manufacturing tolerance and thermal deformation. The circulating flow in the gap has an important effect on the performance of the blower. In this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to investigate the performance of the blower under different flow conditions and gaps, and the accuracy of the numerical simulation was verified by performance experiments. The results show that the flow separation under low flow conditions in the impeller channel can be suppressed by the circulating flow. However, the efficiency of the blower is decreased because a part of the power is used to maintain the circulating flow. Under design conditions, efficiency is reduced by 5.3~8.2%, depending on the gap sizes. Due to the increased flow rate in the impeller channel caused by the gap circulating flow, the net flow rate of the impeller under design conditions is about 12% higher than the inlet flow rate of the blower. Therefore, it leads to an increase of about 12% in impeller efficiency calculated by the net flow rate compared with the inlet flow rate. Finally, the flow field distribution on the impeller channel under different gap conditions was compared, and the effects of the gap on the blower performance were analyzed from the perspective of flow field structure.

Keywords: blower; gap circulating flow; efficiency; flow separation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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