Computer Aided Design of Centrifugal Fan Impeller using CATIA Software

摘要

In this paper, the 3D model of the centrifugal fan impeller will be obtained using CAD software (CATIA). The blade will be obtained with 4 design methods: constant blade width and variable blade angle; hyperbolic blade width and variable blade angle; hyperbolic blade width and constant blade angle; linear blade width and variable blade angle. A comparative analysis of the weight of the blade, as well as of the weight of the rotor composed by cascade of blades, front and rear shrouds will be presented. Two materials have been used for all the elements of the centrifugal fan impeller: steel and aluminium. For computational purposes the MATLAB programming language will be used. The centrifugal fan blade will be designed as untwisted geometry with ns=2 reference curves (one on the rear shroud and the other one on the front shroud) with different numbers of reference points nr={5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50}. After running the MATLAB script file, the coordinates of reference points of the blade will be obtained for all 4 blade design methods. The transfer of the reference points coordinates from MATLAB workspace to CATIA has been performed using the automatic surface generation method, via an EXCEL macro file. This is the recommended method especially for a big number of reference points.