Numerical Analysis of the Whole Field Flow in a Centrifugal Fan for Performance Enhancement - The Effect of Boundary Layer Fences of Different Configurations

Generally the fluid flows within the centrifugal impeller passage as a decelerating flow with an adverse pressure gradient along the stream wise path. This flow tends to be in a state of instability with flow separation zones on the suction surface and on the front shroud. Hence several experimental attempts were earlier made to assess the efficacy of using boundary layer fences to trip the flow in the regions of separation and to make the flow align itself into stream wise direction so that the losses could be minimized and overall efficiency of the diffusion process in the fan could be increased. With the development of CFD, an extensive numerical whole field analysis of the effect of boundary layer fences in discrete regions of suspected separation points is possible. But it is found from the literature that there have been no significant attempts to use this tool to explore numerically the utility of the fences on the flow field. This paper attempts to explore the effect of boundary layer fences corresponding to various geometrical configurations on the impeller as well as on the diffuser. It is shown from the analysis that the fences located on the impellers near the trailing edge on pressure side and suction side improves the static pressure recovery across the fan. Fences provided at the radial mid-span on the pressure side of the diffuser vane and near the leading edge and trailing edge of the suction side of diffuser vanes also improve the static pressure recovery across the fan.