Navier-stokes computations of centrifugal blowers using quasi-steady rotor-stator models

摘要

A CFD-based computational tool is used to analyze flows in centrifugal blowers. The unsteady interactio of the flow in the rotating impeller (rotor) and the stationary volute (stator) is modeled via quasi-steady rotor-stator models. Two such models are developed. Due care is exercised to ensure that grid dependence and numerical dissipation do not smear out the small pressure increase of the computed flow fields. Computed results based on the proposed models with multi-block structured grids and with a commercial package using unstructured grids are presented; certain global quantities such as static pressure rise, horsepower and static efficiency, available from test data for different mass flow rates are used to evaluate the trends predicted by the CFD results. Overall, the predictions by the proposed models are satisfactory.