Effect of Inlet Clearance Gap on the Performance of an Industrial Centrifugal Blower with Parallel Wall Volute

While performing numerical simulations, it is general industrial practice to neglect the clearance gap between the impeller and the inlet duct. In the present work, the effect of clearance gap on the performance of an industrial sized centrifugal blower is simulated for two volutes of width ratios and various flow coefficients. The results show that the clearance has a positive effect at low mass flow rates. This is observed in the pressure rise (1.3%) as well as in efficiency (0.7%). At higher mass flow rates, it has a negative effect with a drop in efficiency of 1% and pressure drop of about 1.4%. The effect of clearance gap on volute with higher width ratio is smaller when compared with the volute with smaller width ratio.