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Performance and inter-blade flow of axial flow

fans with different blade angles of attack

Szu Hsien Liu , Rong Fung Huang & Li Ju Chen

To cite this article: Szu Hsien Liu , Rong Fung Huang & Li Ju Chen (2011) Performance and inter-
blade flow of axial flow fans with different blade angles of attack, Journal of the Chinese Institute of
Engineers, 34:1, 141-153, DOI: 10.1080/02533839.2011.553032

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Published online: 12 Apr 2011.

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Journal of the Chinese Institute of Engineers
Vol. 34, No. 1, January 2011, 141–153

Performance and inter-blade flow of axial flow fans with different blade angles of attack
Szu Hsien Liu, Rong Fung Huang* and Li Ju Chen
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology,
Taipei, Taiwan 10672, ROC
(Received 3 June 2009; final version received 15 October 2009)

The predictions of fan performance on the pressure and flow rate characteristics of the axial flow fans using the
conventional computational flow dynamics (CFD) approaches generally show a large deviation of about 20–30%
from the experimental results. This article modifies the conventional CFD approaches by engaging the flow
resistance of the fan test bench on the downstream area of the computational domain. The downstream pressure
and flow rate are adjusted iteratively during the computational process. The results show that the prediction
deviations using this method can be reduced to at most 3%, which is a great improvement compared to the
conventional method. The inter-blade flows of three axial flow fans with different blade angles of attack are
subsequently studied using this method. The results show that the flow patterns are drastically sensitive to the
variation of the blade angle of attack, and the fan performances are closely related to the inter-blade flow
behaviors. In the pre-stall regime, inappropriately designed blade angle of attack would cause the inter-blade
flows in the region near the blade tip and the flows in the tip clearance region to present larger lateral and smaller
axial velocity components with recirculation bubbles near the blade trailing edges. These flow behaviors cause the
degradation of the fan performance. In the stall regime, boundary layer separation occurs to the suction surface
of fan blades. Large recirculation bubbles appear near the trailing edges of blades and cause blockage effect
against the axial flows. For the fans with inappropriately designed blade angle of attack, reverse flows can even
be observed in the inter-blade passages with huge recirculation bubbles attaching to the trailing edges of fan
blades.
Keywords: axial flow fan; fan performance prediction; flow resistance; fan flow

1. Introduction categories by applications, delineated the AMCA test

The axial flow fan has been widely adopted in the
industrial, commercial, institutional, and residential
applications due to its many possible uses. Many
investigations on the axial flow fan have been pub-
lished in the literature during the past few decades
(Longhouse 1977, Fujita and Takata 1984, Kaneko
et al. 1985, Mizuno and Kikuchi 1990, Venter and
Kröger 1992, Downie et al. 1993, Soundranayagam
and Elder 1993, Dang and Isgro 1995, Bleier 1998, Vad
and Bencze 1998, Beiler and Carolus 1999, Oh and
Kang 1999, Van den Pierret and Braembussche 1999,
Estevadeordal et al. 2000, Jang et al. 2001, Meyer and
Kröger 2001, Velarde-Suarez et al. 2002, Jang et al.
2003, Lee et al. 2003, Jang et al. 2005, Oro et al. 2007).
Subjects such as noise reduction, fan blade profile,
blade surface roughness, stall, hub/frame configura-
tion, performance prediction, tip leakage flow, guide
vanes, inter-blade flow behaviors, and design method-
ology, have been discussed using either computational
or experimental methods. Bleier (1998) clarified fan
method standard, and demonstrated related and
extended applications of fans. Beiler and Carolus
(1999) used CFD to study flow phenomena within
axial flow rotators with various types of skewed blades
and validated the numerical results experimentally. On
the basis of theoretical reasoning and simulation
results, a design method accounting for the skewed
blade was developed. Meyer and Kröger (2001) devel-
oped an ‘actuator disk model’ to simulate the overall
performance and velocity field of an axial flow fan.
The computation results of using this model showed
dramatic improvement in predicting the fan perfor-
mance – only about 10–20% deviation from the
experimental results was obtained. However, since
the model omitted the radial and tangential forces
from the fluid stream and blade tips, a discrepancy in
the velocity field appeared downstream. Longhouse
(1977), Venter and Kröger (1992), Jang et al. (2003),
Lee et al. (2003), and Jang et al. (2005) studied the
leakage effects of the tip clearance on the flow

*Corresponding author. Email: rfhuang@mail.ntust.edu.tw

ISSN 0253–3839 print/ISSN 2158–7299 online

ß 2011 The Chinese Institute of Engineers
DOI: 10.1080/02533839.2011.553032
http://www.informaworld.com
142 S.H. Liu et al.
structure, fan performance, and noise generation. They
found that optimizing the tip clearance might lead to
escalation of the fan performance and reduction of
noise. Oro et al. (2007) analyzed the dynamic and
periodic interaction between the stationary and rotat-
ing blade rows within a low-speed axial fan with inlet
guide vanes. The dual hot-wire technique was imple-
mented to measure the axial and tangential velocities
across the stage. The analyses of underlying mecha-
nisms in both wake transport phenomenon and stator–
rotator interaction were carried out to highlight the
unsteady flow patterns in the axial fan.
The static pressure and the flow rate are the
primary indices to characterize fan performance. The
relationship between static pressure and fan flow rate
is usually referred to as the fan performance curve. The
industrial fan design procedure starts when the
designers receive a request for a specific fan perfor-
mance from the manufacturers or users.
Conventionally, fan designers perform the preliminary
fan design based on empirical and theoretical knowl-
edge. Mock-up and test follow after the preliminary
design. After the test, modifications on the fan design
are required to approach the requested fan perfor-
mance curve. Several iterations of design modification/
mock-up/test are usually necessary to attain a final
satisfactory design. This procedure is usually inefficient
because it takes time and expense. Since the 1980s, the
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method has
provided an alternative approach in fan flow analysis
(Rai 1987, Lakshminarayana 1991, Denton 1992, Liu
and Zheng 1996, Moore and Moore 1999, Zhu et al.
2005). The noticeable progress of CFD makes it
possible to predict the whole performance curve as
well as to inspect the inter-blade flows and the exterior
flow fields near the entrance/exit of a fan. The
conventional methods of using CFD to predict fan
performance and flow details in common use usually
specify a constant inlet pressure and a uniform back
pressure (or a constant flow rate) across the outlet of
the computational domain as the boundary conditions.
The velocity and pressure distributions are calculated
using numerical schemes. The fan performance data,
i.e., the static pressure difference between the outlet
and inlet of the fan and the flow rate driven through
the fan, are subsequently extracted from the compu-
tational results. The accuracy obtained using this kind
of approach commonly can attain the level of approx-
imately 70% to 80% (Meyer and Kröger 2001, Zhu
et al. 2005, Hotchkiss et al. 2006), which is still
unsatisfactory for the requirements of fan design.
There are two purposes in this article. First, a
‘downstream flow resistance’ (DFR) approach which
uses the commercial code (STAR-CD) of
computational fluid dynamics as a platform is devel-
oped to improve fan performance prediction accuracy
with the conventional methods. An experiment-based
flow resistance relationship between the flow rate and
the pressure drop across the flow resistance creating
region of the fan performance test rig is engaged in the
downstream area of the computational domain as a
region of the distributed resistance. The pressure rise
before the flow resistance and the pressure drop across
the resistance region are used to iteratively correct and
approach the static pressure and flow rate. Fans with
three different angles of attack of rotator blades are
used for computation. The computational fan perfor-
mances are compared with the experimental results.
Second, with high accuracy of performance prediction
results obtained by the DFR method, the inter-blade
flow fields are analyzed for three fans with different
angles of attack. The characteristic flow behaviors of
fan designs of different blade angles of attack and the
flow physics inducing the stall phenomena are subse-
quently revealed and discussed.
2. Experimental method for fan performance test
Three high-speed axial flow fans with single-stage
rotator and stator are used in this study. The frames
and hubs of the three fans are all identical. In the axial
flow fan, the rotator drives the incoming air into the
rotating blades and produces the pressure exclusively
by the lift of the airfoil. When the interior flow passes
the rotating blades, the deflected flow pattern takes a
helical shape. Thus the outlet vanes of the stator are
designed to guide the helical flow back to an axial
direction. However, the outlet vanes decelerate the air
velocity simultaneously. The motor and other related
electrical functions are collected together into the
cavity of the hub. Figure 1 shows the fan assembly
and the outlines of three rotators with different hub
angles of attack. The sketches shown in Figure 2
present the major dimensions of the fans. The hub
diameter Dhub, inlet diameter Din, and height H of the
fans are 23.2 mm, 36 mm, and 28 mm, respectively. All
section profiles of each fan, which have five forward-
swept rotator blades and seven backward-swept stator
blades, are designed according to NACA 65-series
airfoil standards. The tip clearance of the rotator
blades is 0.6 mm. The primary parameters of the fan
are listed in Table 1. The only difference among the
three fans is the angle of attack of the rotator blades.
The hub angles of attack (h) of the blades of these
three fans are 55 , 57 , and 59 , respectively. The twist
angle is fixed at 10 so that the tip angles of attack (t)
of the blades of these three fans are set at 45 , 47 , and
49 , respectively. A hub angle of attack of 57 and twist
 Journal of the Chinese Institute of Engineers 143

Figure 1. Pictures of fan assembly and rotators with different hub angles of attack. (a) isogonal view of fan assembly and (b–d)
side views of rotators. Values of h are 55 , 57 , and 59 .

angle of 10 are the optimized design provided by the across the nozzle(s). In order to reduce the measure-
fan supplier. By experience, slight variances in the hub ment deviation of the airflow rate, the selection of the
angle, e.g., 2 about the pre-optimized setting are nozzle is based on the criteria imposed by AMCA 210-
sensitive enough to provide information on fan 99 and the Reynolds number has to be higher than
performance and flow characteristics. Figure 3 shows 12,000 so that the discharge coefficient of the nozzle
the sectional configurations of the blades. The maxi- becomes higher than 0.95 (which is close to 1).
mum airflow rate, maximum pressure rise, and
nominal rotation speed of the fan models used in this
study are 0.54 CMM, 38 mmAq, and 15,000 rpm,
respectively. 3. Computational method
The test rig is set up according to the AMCA The flows in the axial flow fan can be taken as
standard (AMCA Standard 210-99/ASHRAE incompressible, Newtonian, three dimensional, and
Standard 51-1999 1999), as shown in the hand sketch turbulent. The flows are generally described by the
of Figure 4. The facility is a rectangular chamber which Navier–Stokes equations for the conservation of mass
comprises mesh screens (for flow settling), pressure and momentum in Cartesian tensor notation as
measuring devices, nozzles, and an auxiliary fan. The follows:
inner dimensions of the chamber are 0.56 m in
@
width  0.56 m in height  1.76 m in length. The mea- ðui Þ ¼ 0, ð1Þ
sured pressure difference between the static pressure at @xi
the fan outlet and the pressure at the fan inlet is taken
as the static pressure rise of the tested fan. The airflow @ @ @p
ðui Þ þ ðui uj  ij Þ ¼  þ si , ð2Þ
rate can be calculated from the measured pressure drop @t @xj @xi
144
i and
j are the components of angular
Figure 2. Major dimensions of fan for study. (a) top view
and (b) side view.
where  is the density of fluid, xi the Cartesian
coordinate, ui the velocity component of fluid in
direction xi, ij the stress tensor component, p the
piezometric pressure, and si the momentum source
component. A two-equation turbulence model of the
k–" type which is derived from the renormalization
group method (Yakhot et al. 1992) is adopted in
conjunction with the law-of-the-wall function to
consider turbulence effects. The rotating reference
frame method, which is one of the static grid
approaches, is adopted to model the rotation of the
rotator using a steady-state procedure. The rotational
force (Lakshminarayana 1986) sr arising from the
rotation of fluids is added to the source term si of
Equation (2) to produce the format of the following
Equation (3):
sr ¼ 2"ijk 
j Uk  ½ð
j x j Þ
i  ð
j
j Þx i , ð3Þ Refined meshes are deployed in the rotator subgroup
S.H. Liu et al.
Figure 3. Contour of fan blades and definition of blade angle
of attack.
where
velocity, Uk the component of relative mean velocity,
and x i the location vector component with respect to
the rotational reference frame. The first term on the
right-hand side is the Coriolis force, while the summa-
tion of the two terms in the bracket on the right-hand
side denotes the centrifugal force.
The commercial CFD code, STAR-CD, is
employed to solve the coupled governing equations
by the finite volume method which uses structured,
non-orthogonal, and hexahedral mesh discretization.
The spatial flux is discretized by a third-order accurate
interpolation scheme QUICK. A first-order accurate
fully implicit scheme is used for the temporal
discretization. All dependent variables of each control
volume are calculated in terms of the cell-centered
nodal values by a type of non-staggered grid. The
pressure–velocity corrections of the solutions are
achieved by the predictor–corrector strategies of the
SIMPLE algorithm.
The computational domain is shown in Figure 5,
which consists of three regions: open inlet, fan assem-
bly, and outlet duct. The fan assembly is divided into
two subgroups, rotating blades/shroud/hub and static
guide vanes. The structured, non-orthogonal, and
hexahedral meshes are manually fitted in each region.
of the fan assembly region to capture the flow details.
The open inlet, fan assembly, and outlet duct regions
 Journal of the Chinese Institute of Engineers 145

Table 1. Primary geometric parameters of test fans.

Geometric feature Rotator 1 Rotator 2 Rotator 3 Stator

Hub diameter, Dhub (mm) 23.2 23.2

Tip diameter of blade, Dtip (mm) 34.8 36.0
Hub chord length of blade, Chub (mm) 19.7 9.3
Tip chord length of blade, Ctip (mm) 22.6 10.2
Hub angle of attack of blade, h ( ) 59.0 57.0 55.0 59.5
Tip angle of attack of blade, t ( ) 49.0 47.0 45.0 51.5
Twist angle of blade, ( ) 10.0 8.0
Maximum blade thickness, b (mm) 2.4 1.1
Tip clearance, t (mm) 0.6 –
Sweep angle of blade,  ( ) 5.0 20.0
Number of blades 5 7
Swept type of blade Forward Backward
Blade profile NACA 65 series airfoil
Nominal rotation speed, N (rpm) 15,000 –

Figure 4. Facility for measurement of fan performance.

require separate meshes of adequate grid sizes for
capturing the flow properties. The grid stability test
results lead to the use of 2,155,580 grids, totally, for the
entire computational domain. It comprises 778,040
grids in the open inlet region, 1,113,220 in the fan
assembly region, and 264,320 in the outlet duct region.
Each flow passage between two adjacent blades of the
rotator comprises 87  60  30 grids in the streamwise,
blade-to-blade, and spanwise directions, respectively.
The normalized residuals of physical quantities have to
be less than 104 in consideration of the computational
accuracy and convergence visibility.
When the conventional method is used for compu-
tation, a constant inlet pressure and a uniform back
pressure across the outlet of the computational domain
are specified as the boundary conditions. When the
DFR method is used for computation, a total
environmental pressure on exteriors of the inlet
domain and a back pressure over the outlet of the
duct domain are prescribed. Additionally, a region of
distributed momentum sink is engaged in the outlet
duct (the impedance region), as shown in Figure 5.
Theoretically, the flow resistances induced by the
screens installed in plenums 1 and 2 and the nozzles
146 S.H. Liu et al.
installed between plenums 1 and 2, as shown in
Figure 4, should all be taken into account. However,
according to our measurements, the pressure drops
induced by the screens are much smaller than those
induced by the nozzles, so the screen resistances are
ignored. The DFR method treats the flow resistance
induced by the nozzles (for flow rate measurement) of
the standard test bench as a downstream porous region
in the outlet duct of the computational domain.
A specific coding is developed to characterize the
pressure drop across the porous region. An additional
source term representing the flow resistance is related
to the velocity components through the porous region.
Consequently, the DFR method can couple the effect
of the DFR into the full momentum equations. When
each iteration process is completed, the source term of
the engaged flow resistance is correspondingly revised
by the computed velocity components through the
porous region. Then the pressure and flow rate are
updated by re-solving the full momentum equations in
the next iteration. By this process, both pressure and
flow rate can be adjusted iteratively till the whole
computation is completed. Since the 1980s, Patankar
(1980) and Warsi (1981), discrete momentum balance
equations based on the Navier–Stokes equations have
been presented. Subsequently, it seems to have become
a standard method to engage a special ‘force’ to the
discrete momentum equations by specific forms of
source or sink. Investigators have employed various
forms to describe different ‘forces’. The innovative idea
of this work is engaging the ‘DFR’ (although it
constantly exists in the standard test bench, it has
not been considered previously) to the source term of
the discrete equations to activate the effect of the flow
resistance in the computational process. The method of
engaging the DFR as a source term is standard or
conventional, but the idea of engaging it to the
computation is new. This additional momentum
source term si in Equation (2) takes the form of sv as
shown in the following equation:
sv ¼ s1  s2 vp , ð4Þ
where vp is the velocity which passes the engaged
resistance region and s1 and s2 are adjustable coeffi-
cients during the computation. Equation (4) is
obtained by converting the format of the correlated
function of relationship between the measured flow
rate and the pressure drop across the nozzle section of
the standard AMCA fan test rig. The coefficients s1
and s2 are parameters used to implement the flow
resistance. They vary with the nozzle sizes of the
standard test rig. Since the specifications of the nozzles
are standard for the AMCA fan test rig, the
Figure 5. Computation domain.
downstream resistances of different sizes of standard
nozzles can be tested and stored as a data bank for
selection of s1 and s2. The experimentally obtained
impedance of each nozzle engaged in the AMCA
standard test rig can be formulated physically with the
correlated function of relationship between the mea-
sured flow rate and the pressure drop across the nozzle.
Accordingly, the correlated function of the nozzle can
be converted into the form of Equation (4) with two
adjustable constants s1 and s2. For instance, an
engaged nozzle with 8 mm diameter at the nozzle exit
would provide 62,118 N/m3 and 18,650 N-s/m4 for the
coefficients s1 and s2, respectively, using the above-
mentioned method.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Fan performance
‘Static pressure’, ‘static pressure rise,’ and ‘back
pressure’ are well-known terms used in the fan indus-
try, which identically describe the difference between
the static pressure at the fan exit and the total pressure
at the fan inlet. In this study, the ‘static pressure’ is
specifically employed to characterize the fan perfor-
mance. The measured fan performance curves (the
Ps–Q curves) of three fans with the hub angles of
attack h at 55 , 57 , and 59 are shown in Figure 6.
For all three fans, the static pressure Ps (i.e., the outlet
pressure minus the inlet pressure) increases with the
decrease of flow rate Q. According to the abrupt
changes of the slopes, the fan performance curves are
conventionally categorized into three characteristic
regimes: pre-stall, stall, and deep-stall. At null static
pressure (i.e., Ps ¼ 0), the fans deliver the maximum
flows. The measured flow rates Q attain 0.51, 0.54, and
0.55 CMM for h ¼ 55 , 57 , and 59 , respectively. In
the pre-stall regime (for Q greater than about
0.36 CMM), the static pressure Ps increases with the
decrease of the flow rate Q. In the range of flow rate
between about 0.22 and 0.36 CMM (i.e., in the stall
 Journal of the Chinese Institute of Engineers
Figure 6. Measured fan performance curves of three fans
with hub angles of attack h ¼ 55 , 57 , and 59 .
regime), the increase rate of the developed static
pressure becomes drastically retarded with the decrease
of the flow rate. In this regime, a significant decrease in
the flow rate will cause a slight increase in Ps; therefore
it is commonly called the stall regime by the fan
investigators. In the deep-stall regime (for Q smaller
than about 0.22 CMM), the decrease rate of the
static pressure resumes its trend as it behaves in the
pre-stall regime. The fan flow rates are brought to null
as the static pressures are raised to 37.21, 33.40, and
37.16 mmAq for h ¼ 55 , 57 , and 59 , respectively.
When the blades of the rotator drive the air, there
exists a resultant force on the airfoil. This force can be
resolved into two components: a lift force and a drag.
The lift force produces the static pressure of the fan.
However, the drag force is an undesirable component
consuming fan power. A good lift–drag ratio will
significantly improve fan performance. These physical
features are all affected by the angle of attack. Thus, a
designer can optimize fan performance using a critical
value of the angle of attack for the highest lift force
(i.e., static pressure) and the best lift–drag ratio (i.e.,
flow rate). In the pre-stall regime, the performance of
the fan with h ¼ 55 is apparently lower than the other
two fans with larger hub angles of attack. At the same
static pressure, the fan with h ¼ 57 can drive a
slightly larger flow rate than the fan with h ¼ 59 . In
other words, the hub angle of attack between 57 and
59 is quite critical for operation in the pre-stall regime:
the fan will attain the best performance at the critical
hub angle of attack. For an h lower than the critical
value, fan performance will increase with the increase
147
of the hub angle of attack. For an h higher than the
critical value, the situation is reversed. These phenom-
ena are natural since a large angle of attack creates
higher static pressure and lower flow rate, and vice
versa (Bleier 1998). Therefore, there must exist an
optimized angle of attack for the fan performance with
the highest pressure and flow rate in the regime
without complicated viscous flow behaviors. As the
lift rises beyond the maximum value in the pre-stall
regime, the angle between the relative velocity and the
airfoil becomes large. The flow does not follow the
suction surface of the blade any more and separates
from the profile. The fan thus stalls. If the flow rate
decreases continuously in the deep-stall regime, the
inter-blade flow fields will be greatly affected by the
angle between the relative velocity and the airfoil.
At this moment, the blades of the rotator throw the
incoming air outward by centrifugal force and raise the
static pressure until the condition of null flow rate is
reached. In the stall and deep-stall regimes, the fan with
h ¼ 59 performs much better than other fans. In the
deep-stall regime, the performance of the fan with
h ¼ 57 becomes the worst, which is in contrast to
what was observed in the pre-stall regime. Considering
the overall performance across the whole operation
range, the fan with h ¼ 59 obviously presents the best
performance among the three cases.
4.2. Accuracy of fan performance prediction
Although a parallel computing system is employed to
simulate the fan characteristics, it is still very time
consuming. It takes about 2–3 days to obtain one
qualified datum on the fan performance curve. In
order to minimize the time consumption, the compu-
tations using DFR are primarily focused. The compu-
tations for the conventional method (which are used
for comparison) are selected to distribute over the three
characteristic regimes of the fan performance curve.
Figure 7 shows the comparisons of the computed and
measured fan performances among three fans with
different hub angles of attack. It is apparent that the
conventional method provides large deviations from
the experimental results for all three fans. At the null
pressure rise and flow rate, the results of the conven-
tional method seem to deviate by only small amounts
from the experimental results. However, except for the
two extreme cases, the inaccuracies of prediction, using
the conventional method, become very large. By
contrast, the computational results of the DFR
method correlate well with the experimental results
over the whole range of operation. Table 2 presents
the percentages of predicted deviations from the
experimental results of the conventional and DFR
148
Figure 7. Calculated fan performances and comparisons
with experimental results. Values of h are 55 , 57 , and 59 .
methods. For the conventional method (by specifying
pressure rise Ps), the deviations of the predicted flow
rates may reach up to 52.7%, 22.1%, and 65.7%,
respectively, for h ¼ 55 , 57 , and 59 , While the
deviations of the predicted pressure rises with the DFR
method attain at most about 1.4%, 2.9%, and 1.2%
for h ¼ 55 , 57 , and 59 , respectively. The maximum
predicted deviations of flow rates are about 0.5%,
1.2%, and 1.5% for h ¼ 55 , 57 , and 59 , respec-
tively. Generally speaking, the maximum inaccuracy of
the computational predictions on the fan performances
with the DFR method will be within 3%. The reason
why the DFR method can attain such high prediction
accuracy is because the back pressure and flow rate are
iteratively adjusted to approach more realistic values
S.H. Liu et al.
during the computational process. The DFR method
has been applied to compute the fan performances and
flow fields of several different cases (including axial
fans with various twist angles, centrifugal fans, multi-
stage fans, and test rigs with different nozzle resis-
tances) to examine its validity. Results similar to this
case were obtained. Because the accuracy of the
performance prediction results obtained with the
DFR method is drastically higher than that obtained
with the conventional method, the inter-blade flow
fields are discussed for the three fans with different
angles of attack in the following sections.
4.3. Flows between neighboring blades of rotator
Figure 8 shows the vector maps of flow velocities
relative to the moving speeds of fan blades at Ps ¼ 0
and Q ¼ Qmax, which is in the pre-stall regime. The
associated streamtrace patterns between neighboring
rotator blades are also presented. The views are in the
axial direction of the fan, along the circumferential
peripheries, and across the normalized radius.
Figure 8(a)–(c) shows the view across r* ¼ 0.6, which
is located at about the mid-span of the blades. It is
obvious that for all three fans with h ¼ 55 , 57 , and
59 , the streamtraces go smoothly along the passages
between two neighboring blades from the inlet to the
outlet of the fans. However, at r* ¼ 0.74, which
is located near the tips of the blades, as shown in
Figure 8(d)–(f), the relative flow velocities in the
passages between two neighboring blades are deflected
toward the pressure surfaces of the blades. Two
reasons may cause such deflection of flow direction.
First, the actual angle of attack of blades at this span
cross-section near the blade tip is about 10 smaller
than the hub angle of attack due to the twist of the
blades; therefore, the horizontal component of veloc-
ities is increased. Second, since there is a 0.6 mm tip
clearance, the boundary layer on the inner wall of the
frame causes drag on the flow in the lateral direction.
The relative velocities near the blade tip region, hence,
present larger lateral velocity components and smaller
axial velocity components. This leads to a smaller net
flow rate when compared with what goes through the
cross-section at the mid-span. The flows in the tip
clearance across r* ¼ 0.76 are shown in Figure 8(g)–(i).
At h ¼ 55 , the lateral components of flow velocities
are smaller than those of the other two hub angles of
attack at h ¼ 57 and 59 , and vortices are formed
near the trailing edges of blades. These effects cause the
flow rate to decrease. The flow rate of the fan with
h ¼ 55 therefore presents the lowest value among the
three fans, as shown in Figure 6 and Table 2.
 Journal of the Chinese Institute of Engineers 149

Table 2. Deviations of predicted fan performances from experimental results.

Experimental results Prediction deviation: DPs, DQ ¼ CFDExp:

Exp:  100

AMCA 210 Conventional DFR

Ps (mmAq) Q (CMM) DPs (%) DQ (%) DPs (%) DQ (%)

ah ^ 55
0 0.51 Specified same values as Ps 3.92 0 0.20
9.10 0.41 2.44 – –
12.65 0.36 – – –
13.91 0.32 – 1.37 0
14.55 0.27 – 0.02 0
15.20 0.22 31.82 – –
16.35 0.21 – 0.01 0.48
19.68 0.18 – – –
23.50 0.15 52.70 – –
29.30 0.09 – – –
37.21 0 4.21 0 0
ah ^ 57
0 0.54 Specified same values as Ps 0.19 0 0.38
4.91 0.50 – 1.22 0.49
9.12 0.45 11.78 1.43 0.78
12.33 0.40 – 1.42 1.18
14.13 0.36 – 1.14 0.62
14.72 0.29 – 1.03 0.70
15.20 0.24 15.42 1.19 0.90
17.43 0.19 – 0.82 0.70
23.51 0.14 22.14 2.90 0.80
27.23 0.08 – 2.75 0
33.40 0 0 0 0
ah ^ 59
0 0.55 Specified same values as Ps 1.82 0 1.45
9.10 0.44 11.36 – –
13.00 0.38 – – –
15.15 0.33 – 0.36 0.31
15.20 0.30 45.76 – –
15.93 0.27 – 1.18 0
17.53 0.23 – 0.03 0
20.37 0.20 – – –
23.50 0.18 65.71 – –
29.31 0.12 – – –
37.16 0 – 0 0

Figure 9 shows the vector maps of flow velocities
relative to the moving speeds of fan blades in the stall
regime. Around the mid-span section of blades at
r* ¼ 0.6, as shown in Figure 9(a)–(c), boundary layer
separation occurs on the suction surfaces of the blades
for all three fans. Downstream of the trailing edges of
blades, recirculating vortices are found. The separa-
tions of boundary layers on the suction surfaces and
the trailing edge vortices induce a ‘blockage effect’ on
the development of the flow rate; therefore, in the stall
regime the driven flow rate Q decreases drastically with
a slight increase of Ps. Near the blade tips, at r* ¼ 0.74,
the flow patterns are presented in Figure 9(d)–(f). At
h ¼ 55 , as shown in Figure 9(d), the flows in the
passage between two neighboring two blades are
reversed due to the blockage effect induced by the
‘huge’ vortices existing downstream from the trailing
edges of blades. At h ¼ 57 , as shown in Figure 9(e),
although the inter-blade flows are not reversed, the
downstream vortices still exist, and induce a blockage
effect. At h ¼ 59 , as shown in Figure 9(f), no
recirculating vortices exist downstream of the trailing
edges of blades. Only part of the flow, upstream from
the mid-chord region of blades, presents a slight
tendency to reversal. The flows in the tip clearance
across r* ¼ 0.76 are shown in Figure 9(g)–(i). Part of
the streams go laterally and get across the blade tips,
and part of the flows go directly downstream. Overall,
150 S.H. Liu et al.

Figure 8. Relative velocity vectors and streamtraces computed by DFR method at Ps ¼ 0. (a) h ¼ 55 , r* ¼ 0.6, (b) h ¼ 57 ,
r* ¼ 0.6, (c) h ¼ 59 , r* ¼ 0.6, (d) h ¼ 55 , r* ¼ 0.74, (e) h ¼ 57 , r* ¼ 0.74, (f) h ¼ 59 , r* ¼ 0.74, (g) h ¼ 55 , r* ¼ 0.76,
(h) h ¼ 57 , r* ¼ 0.76, and (i) h ¼ 59 , r* ¼ 0.76. Q ¼ 0.51 CMM (a, d, g), 0.54 CMM (b, e, h), and 0.55 CMM (c, f, i).

from the flow patterns of Figure 9, the flows near the
tip region and in the tip clearance of the fan with
h ¼ 55 induce the most serious stall phenomena when
compared with those of the other two fans. Conversely,
the fan with h ¼ 59 performs the best among the
three fans in the stall regime. The behaviors of the fan
performance curves in the stall regime appearing in
Figure 6 are therefore closely related to the flow
phenomena illustrated by Figure 9.
Figure 10 shows the vector maps of flow velocities
relative to the moving speeds of fan blades at Q ¼ 0
and Ps ¼ Ps,max, which is in the deep-stall regime. Since
the net flow rate is null, the flows in the passages
between neighboring blades form complex vortices
near the section across the mid-chords of the blades.
Near the blade tips, saddle points are observed in the
passages between two neighboring blades. In the tip
clearance region (Figure 10g–i), the drag developed by
the blade tips forces the flows to go from the left to the
right, which is completely different from the
phenomena observed in the pre-stall (Figure 8g–i)
and stall (Figure 9g–i) regimes.
5. Conclusions
This study improves conventional CFD approaches for
the prediction of fan performance by engaging the flow
resistance of the fan test bench in the downstream area
of the computational domain. It engages a DFR
(which is obtained from the downstream pressure drop
measurements in the standard test bench) to the source
term of the momentum equations and approaches the
static pressure at the fan exit by iterations during the
computational process. The results show that using
this method (without employing the moving grid
scheme) the prediction accuracy can attain 97%,
which is a great improvement over the conventional
method (which normally presents an accuracy of about
70% to 80%). The improvements are due to the
appropriate predictions of the flow fields by properly
 Journal of the Chinese Institute of Engineers 151

Figure 9. Relative velocity vectors and streamtraces computed by DFR method. (a) h ¼ 55 , r* ¼ 0.6, (b) h ¼ 57 , r* ¼ 0.6,
(c) h ¼ 59 , r* ¼ 0.6, (d) h ¼ 55 , r* ¼ 0.74, (e) h ¼ 57 , r* ¼ 0.74, (f) h ¼ 59 , r* ¼ 0.74, (g) h ¼ 55 , r* ¼ 0.76, (h) h ¼ 57 ,
r* ¼ 0.76, and (i) h ¼ 59 , r* ¼ 0.76. (Ps, Q) ¼ (14.55 mmAq, 0.27 CMM) (a, d, g), (15.2 mmAq, 0.24 CMM) (b, e, h), and
(15.93 mmAq, 0.27 CMM) (c, f, i).

adjusting the static pressures at the fan exit. The the trailing edges of fan blades. It is concluded that the
applications of this method to the simulation of three DFR method can significantly improve on the results
fans with different blade angles of attack show of conventional methods, reveal flow details, and
interesting flow phenomena. In the pre-stall regime, benefit the design parameters.
an inappropriately designed blade angle of attack will
cause both the inter-blade flows in the region near the
blade tip and the flows in the tip clearance region to Nomenclature
present larger lateral and smaller axial velocity com- Chub hub chord length of blade, mm
ponents. Besides, recirculation bubbles will appear Ctip tip chord length of blade, mm
near the blade trailing edges. These flow behaviors Dhub hub diameter, mm
cause a downgrading of the fan’s performance. In the Din inner diameter of frame, mm
stall regime, boundary layer separation occurs on the Dtip tip diameter of blade, mm
suction surfaces of fan blades. Large recirculation H fan height, mm
bubbles appear near the trailing edges of blades and N rotational speed of rotator, rpm
cause a blockage effect against axial flows. For fans Ps difference of static pressure at outlet and
with inappropriately designed blade angle of attack, inlet of fan (¼ Ps,out  Ps,in), mmAq
reverse flows can even be observed in the inter-blade Ps,in static pressure at inlet of fan
passages with huge recirculation bubbles attaching to Ps,out static pressure at outlet of fan
152 S.H. Liu et al.

Figure 10. Relative velocity vectors and streamtraces computed by DFR method at Q ¼ 0. (a) h ¼ 55 , r* ¼ 0.6, (b) h ¼ 57 ,
r* ¼ 0.6, (c) h ¼ 59 , r* ¼ 0.6, (d) h ¼ 55 , r* ¼ 0.74, (e) h ¼ 57 , r* ¼ 0.74, (f) h ¼ 59 , r* ¼ 0.74, (g) h ¼ 55 , r* ¼ 0.76, (h)
h ¼ 57 , r* ¼ 0.76, and (i) h ¼ 59 , r* ¼ 0.76. Ps ¼ 37.21 mmAq (a, d, g), 33.4 mmAq (b, e, h), and 37.16 mmAq (c, f, i).

p piezometric pressure x i location vector component with respect

Q volumetric flow rate, CMM to the rotational reference frame
r radius from rotator center  angle of attack of blade
r* normalized radius (¼2r/Din) h hub angle of attack of blade
S inter blades separation in x direction t tip angle of attack of blade
si momentum source component " twist angle of blade
sr rotational forces arising from the fluid  sweep angle of blade
rotation b maximum blade thickness, mm
sv additive velocity source term t tip clearance, mm
s 1, s 2 components of sv in terms of resistances
i,
j components of angular velocity
t time "ijk permutation tensor
Uk relative mean velocity  molecular viscosity of air
ui fluid velocity component in direction xi  density of air
V arbitrary control volume ij stress tensor component
vs surface velocity  angle along the circumferential direction
vp velocity through the engaged resistance
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