• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.1383-1388
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• 2004

The flow characteristics in the blade passage of a low speed axial flow fan have been investigated by experimental analysis using a rotating hot-wire sensor for design and off-design operating conditions. The results show that the tip leakage vortex is moved upstream when flow rate is decreased, thus disturbing the formation of wake flow near the rotor tip. The tip leakage vortex interfaces with blade pressure surface, and results in high velocity fluctuation near the pressure surface. From the relative velocity distributions near the rotor tip, large axial velocity decay is observed at near stall condition, which results in large blockage compared to that at the design condition. Througout the flow measurements using a quasi-orthogonal measuring points to the tip leakage vortex, it is noted that the radial position of the tip leakage vortex is distributed between 94 and 96 percent span for all flow conditions. High spectrum density due to the large fluctuation of the tip leakage vortex is observed near the blade suction surface below the frequency of 1000 Hz at near stall condition.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.25-33
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• 2000

This study represents three-dimensional turbulent flow characteristics around an axial fan measured at the operating point ${\varphi}=0.32$, which is equivalent to the maximum flowrate region, by using three-dimensional fiber-optic type LDA system. This LDA system is composed of a 5 W Argon-ion laser, two optics in back-scatter mode, three BSA's, a PC, and a three-dimensional automatic traversing system. A kind of paraffin fog is used for laser particles in this study. Mean velocity profiles around an axial fan along the downstream radial distance show that the streamwise and the tangential components exist as a predominant velocity and have the maximum value at the radial distance ratio 0.8, while the radial component has a small scale distribution and its flow direction is inward except a part of blade tip. The turbulent intensity profiles show that the radial component exists the most greatly. And also the turbulent kinetic energy shows about 60% as a maximum value at the radial distance ratio 0.9. Moreover, the Reynolds shear stresses do not exist at upstream flow, but the streamwise and the radial components of them show about 20% as a maximum value at the radial distance ratio 0.9 at downstream flow.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Geothermal and Hydrothermal Energy
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.19-25
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• 2013

A new type axial flow fan with centrifugal sub-blades has been designed and fabricated in the present study. We investigated velocity and pressure distributions in downstream flow fields of the fan experimentally to detect the detailed flow characteristics of new axial flow fan and an existing axial flow fan. Two-dimensional velocity components were probed by applying a particle image velocimetry system and pressure distributions were measured by Pitot tube and micro-manometer. Our results show that the velocity and pressure distributions at the flow fields of the new fan are quite different from the existing fan, and that the centrifugal sub-blades in the new fan can improve the performance characteristics in view of kinetic energy.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.819-828
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• 2001

The operating point of a small-sized axial fan is strongly dependent upon the system resistance. Therefore, the turbulent flow characteristics around a small-sized axial fan may change significantly according to the operating point. This study represents three-dimensional turbulent flow characteristics around a small-sized axial fan measured at the ideal design point $\phi$=0.25, which is equivalent to the maximum total efficiency point, by using three dimensional fiber-optic type LDA system. This LDA system is composed of a 5 W Argon-ion laser, two optics in back-scatter mode, three BSAs, a PC, and a three-dimensional automatic traversing system. A kind of paraffin fluid is used to supply particles by means of fog generator. Mean velocity profiles downstream of a small-sized axial fan along the radial distance show that the streamwise and the tangential components exist in a predominant manner, while the radial component has a small scale distribution and shows the inflection which its flow direction is inward or outward. Moreover, the turbulent intensity profiles show that the radial component exists the most greatly among turbulent energies.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.11b
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• pp.371-376
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• 2001

The operating point of a small-sized axial fan for refrigerator is strongly dependent upon the system resistance. Therefore, the turbulent flow characteristics around a small-sized axial fan may change significantly according to the operating point. This study represents three-dimensional turbulent flow characteristics around a small-sized axial fan measured at the four operating points such as $\varphi=0.1$, 0.18, 0.25 and 0.32 by using fiber-optic type LDA system. This LDA system is composed of a 5 W Argon-ion laser, two optics in back-scatter mode, three BSA's, a PC, and a three-dimensional automatic traversing system. A kind of paraffin fluid is utilized for supplying particles by means of fog generator. Mean velocity profiles downstream of a small-sized axial fan along the radial distance show that both the streamwise and the tangential components exist predominantly in downstream except $\varphi=0.1$ and have a maximum value at the radial distance ratio of about 0.8, but the radial component, which its velocity is relatively small, is acting role that only turns flow direction to the outside or the central part of axial fan. Moreover, all of the velocity components downstream at $\varphi=0.1$ show much smaller than those upstream due to the static pressure rise at the low-flowrate region.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.181-188
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• 2004

The frequency characteristics in an axial flow fan operating at a design and three off-design operating conditions have been investigated by measuring the velocity fluctuation of a tip leakage vortex and a wake flow. Two hot-wire probe sensors rotating with the fan rotor. a fixed and a moving ones, were introduced to obtain a cross-correlation coefficient between two sensors as well as the fluctuating velocity. The results show that the spectral peaks due to the fluctuating velocity near the rotor tip are mainly observed in the reverse flow region of higher flow rates than those in the peak pressure operating condition. However, no peak frequency presents near the rotor tip for near stall condition. Detailed wake flow just downstream of the rotor blade was also measured by the rotating hot-wire sensor. The peak frequency of a high velocity fluctuation due to Karman vortex shedding in the wake region is mainly observed at the higher flow rate condition than that in the design point.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.40-47
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• 2008

The turbulent flow characteristics around a small-size axial fan(SSAF) for a refrigerator are strongly dependent upon the operating points. Four operating points such as $\phi$ =0.1, 0.18, 0.25 and 0.32 were adopted in this study to investigate three-dimensional turbulent flow characteristics around the SSAF by using a fiber-optic type Laser Doppler Anemometer(LDA) system. Downstream mean velocity profiles of the SSAF along the radial distance show that axial and tangential velocity components exist predominantly, except $\phi$ = 0.1, and have a maximum value at $r/R{\fallingdotseq}0.8$, but radial velocity component having a relatively small value only turns flow direction to the outside or the central part of the SSAF. The turbulent intensity shows that the radial component exists most greatly after $r/R{\fallingdotseq}0.5$. Downstream turbulent kinetic energy at $\phi$ = 0.25 and 0.32 together has the largest peak value at $r/R{\fallingdotseq}0.9$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.275-281
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• 2001

While basic input parameters for the performance and noise of axial fan are flow rate, pressure rise, rotating speed, and fan diameter, the geometric parameters of blade are sweep angle, solidity, and camber angle. The sweep angle does not affect fan performance much, but on fan noise significantly. Solidity and camber angle are very critical design parameters acting on the fan performance directly. The solidity and camber angle are closely related, therefore they have to be carefully determined for the low-noise and high-performance fan. In This paper, different design points are selceted and also geometric parameters are deliberately changed for the comparison of fan noise. As a result, at the same performance, the input rotational speed affects radiated noise more significantly than others. When solidity and camber angle are increased more than those by iDesignFan／sup TM／ program, more noise is experienced. The blade sweep method and blade numbers at same solidity are observed to results in different levels of performance and noise.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.883-892
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• 2003

The experiment using three-dimensional laser Dopperr velocimetery (LDV) measurements and the computation using the Reynolds stress model of the commercial code, FLUENT, were conducted to give a clear understanding on the structure of tip leakage flow in a forward-swept axial-flow fan operating at the maximum efficiency condition. The tip leakage vortex was generated near the position of the minimum wall static pressure, which was located at approximately 12% chord downstream from the leading edge of blade suction side, and developed along the centerline of the pressure trough within the blade passages. A reverse flow between the blade tip region and the casing, induced by tip leakage vortex, acted as a blockage on the through-flow. As a result, high momentum flux was observed below the tip leakage vortex. As the tip leakage vortex proceeded to the aft part of the blade passage, the strength of tip leakage vortex decreased due to the strong interaction with the through-flow and casing boundary layer, and the diffusion of tip leakage vortex caused by high turbulence. In comparison with LDV measurement data, the computed results predicted the complex viscous flow patterns inside the tip region, including the locus of tip leakage vortex center, in a reliable level.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.7 no.1 s.22
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• pp.36-44
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• 2004

Three-dimensional vortical flow and separated flow topology near the casing wall in an axial flow fan having two different tip clearances have been investigated by a Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) flow simulation. The simulation shows that the tip leakage vortex formed close to the leading edge of the blade tip on suction side grows in the streamwise direction. On the casing wall, a separation line is formed upstream of the leakage vortex center due to the interference between the leakage vortex and main flow. The reverse flow is observed between the separation line and the attachment line generated downstream of the trailing edge, and increased with enlarging tip clearance. The patterns of a leakage velocity vector including a leakage flow rate are also analyzed according to two tip clearances. It is noted that the understanding of the distribution of a limiting streamline on the casing wall is very important to grasp the characteristics of the vortical flow in the axial flow fan.