Stereoscopic PIV measurements of flow in and around axial flow fan

To analyze the complex three-dimensional flow structure of an axial flow fan and determine the validity of its application, PIV is used to provide detailed space and time resolved experimental data for understanding and control of flow field. The high resolution stereoscopic PIV system was successfully employed in this study for the investigation of flow structure around the axial flow fan. Using the once-per-revolution signal from the rotor, image fields were captured at a fixed position of the blades and hence provides the ability to do phase-averaging. The three-dimensional instantaneous velocity fields, phase-averaged velocity fields, instantaneous and mean vorticity distributions of the stereoscopic PIV measurement results were represented at typical planes of the flow field. Phaseaveraged velocity fields were calculated based on 200 frames of the instantaneous stereoscopic PIV measurement results. From the velocity distribution, the vorticity and turbulent intensity distribution, which are known to be major factors of fan noise, were calculated and its diffusion was discussed as they travel downstream. From the reconstructed three-dimensional velocity iso-surface at 8 cross planes of the outlet flow fields, the three-dimensional features can be seen clearly.     

Velocity measurements in a turbulent round jet using PTV: the effect of tracer particles

The effects of different tracer particles used in the PTV technique on the velocity field are investigated. The measurements are taken in a water round jet at a Reynolds number equal to about 40000, a flow field widely examined in the literature, in which strong velocity differences are encountered. The interest is focused onto particles with different density. Although the mean and rms values are almost unaffected, both measurements obtained with light and heavy particles (in comparison to the density of the fluid) reveal a modified velocity field. The moments of velocity differences (structure functions) point out that such a modification is felt within each range of flow scales. Particles with density almost equal to that of the fluid reproduce the flow behaviour over all the scales.     

A study of active tonal noise control for a small axial flow fan

Sound radiated by a computer cooling fan consists of tones which are phase locked with the rotation, and other less deterministic tones and broadband random noise. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of globally eliminating the rotation-locked tones by applying a very simple destructive interference to a modified cooling fan with the number of struts equal to the number of rotor blades. The rig consists of a miniature electret microphone used as a rotation sensor, an ordinary loudspeaker, and a bandpass filter with adjustable amplitude and phase delay. The microphone is located at the inlet bellmouth of the fan to pick up the fluctuating aerodynamic pressure caused by the passing rotor blades. The pressure spectrum is rich in the blade passing frequency (BPF) and its low-order harmonics. It provides much better performance than a pulse-generating tachometer. Analysis of the original fan noise shows that about 90% of the radiated tonal sound is phase locked with rotation, and this portion is almost completely eliminated in all directions. The reductions of the radiated sound power in the first two BPFs are 18.5 and 13.0 dB, respectively, and the overall sound power reduction is 11.0 dB.     

Stereoscopic PIV measurements of flow around a marine propeller

A stereoscopic PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) technique has been employed to measure the 3 dimensional flow structure of turbulent wake behind a marine propeller with 5 blades. The out-of-plane velocity component was measured using particle images captured simultaneously by two CCD cameras installed in the angular displacement configuration. 400 instantaneous velocity fields were acquired for each of four different blade phases of 0°, 18°, 36° and 54°. They were ensemble averaged to investigate the spatial evolution of propeller wake in the near wake region up to one propeller diameter (D) downstream. The phase-averaged velocity fields show clearly the viscous wake formed by the boundary layers developed along both surfaces of the blade. Tip vortices were generated periodically and the slipstream contraction occurs in the near-wake region. The out-of-plane velocity component has large values at the locations of tip and trailing vortices. With going downstream, the axial turbulence intensity and the strength of tip vortices were decreased due to the viscous dissipation, turbulence diffusion and blade-to-blade interaction. The difference in the mean velocity fields measured by SPIV and 2-D PIV methods was about 5% ≈ 10%. However, the 2-D PIV results also give sufficient information on propeller wake beyond the region of X/D=0.2.     

Tonal prediction of a faulty axial fan

The current techniques for monitoring and diagnostics of rotating machines to their conditional predictive maintenance mainly are based on vibration monitoring. In this research, experimental and theoretical methods to predict the tonal noise of a faulty fan are developed and validated. These methods can be used on identifying defects of an axial fan based on an acoustic monitoring in situations where it is necessary to operate remotely due to the inaccessibility of the areas of event defects.     

Visualization of transient three-dimensional flow field with rotating stall in a diagonal flow fan

An Unsteady flow field with rotating stall cells in a high specific-speed diagonal flow fan has been investigated experimentally. Although a general feature of stall cells has already indicated, i.e., the number of stall cells is one and its propagating speed is approximately 80 percent of rotor speed, little has been known about the flow field when a rotating stall occurs because of its unsteadiness. In order to capture the behavior of the rotating stall cell, measurements of the flow field at the rotor inlet were carried out with a single slant hot-wire. Those data were processed by a so-called “double phase-locked averaging” (DPLA) technique, which enabled to capture the flow field of the cell in the reference co-ordinate system fixed to the rotor. As a result, time-dependent ensemble averages of the three-dimensional velocity components at the rotor inlet have been obtained and the behavior of the rotating stall cell has been illustrated with each velocity component.     

Improvement of ventilation flow inside a large factory building using PIV velocity field measurements

Air movement in workplaces, whether resulting from a forced ventilation system or natural airflow, has a significant impact on occupational health. In a huge building of shipbuilding factory, typical harmful factors such as fume or vaporized gas from welding and cutting of steel plates give an unpleasant feeling. From field data survey, the yearly dominant wind directions around the factory building tested were north-west, north-east and south-east. Among the three wind directions, the ventilation improvement was the worst for the north-eastern wind. This study was focused on modification of opening vents in order to utilize the natural ventilation flow effectively. Instantaneous velocity fields inside the 1/1000 scale-down factory building model were measured using a 2-frame cross-correlation PIV method. The factory model was embedded in an atmospheric boundary layer simulated in a wind tunnel. The modified vents improved the internal ventilation flow with increasing the flow speed more than two times, compared with that of present vents.     

Visualization of tip vortex flow in an open axial fan by EFD

The behavior of tip vortex in an axial fan without casing wall (called open axial fan) was discussed and analyzed. The velocity measurement was performed by using two-components Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) system. The detailed velocity and vorticity distribution inside blade passage and downstream of rotor were obtained. Thus the structure of tip vortex and its behavior were graphically visualized by experimental fluid dynamics (EFD). The tip vortex flow trace was indicated with the calculation of vorticity. As a result, it was found that tip vortex was generated at blade tip region near leading edge and it extended to downstream of blade exit with its core tending inward to hub direction. In addition, leading edge vortex was also found at the forepart of the experimental open fan.     

Multi-scalar measurements in a premixed swirl burner using 1D Raman/Rayleigh scattering

Instantaneous measurements of temperature, equivalence ratio, and major species were performed along a one-dimensional probe volume using simultaneous Raman/Rayleigh scattering in an unconfined turbulent lean-premixed swirling methane/air flame. Temperature was determined from Rayleigh scattering and the major species, CO₂, O₂, N₂, CH₄, H₂O, and H₂ from Raman scattering. Effective Rayleigh cross-sections were corrected using the local chemical composition obtained from Raman scattering. These experiments were conducted to investigate the compositional structure of a lean-premixed swirling flame in detail and to complement previous measurements of the underlying flow field. The flame was classified within a revised regime diagram at the cross-over between corrugated flames and thin reaction zones. Instantaneous temperature profiles varied significantly showing shapes ranging from laminar-like flamelets to mixing between reacted fluid elements and secondary air. Different thermo-kinetic states could be assigned to the inner and outer recirculation zones and to the inner and outer mixing layers. Linked to published velocity data of this flame, the present multi-scalar data are useful for validation of numerical simulations.     

Pinch instability of a cylindrical couette flow in a nonuniform axial magnetic field

The paper addresses the linear stability to axisymmetric perturbations of an incompressible nonideal fluid between two rotating coaxial infinitely long cylinders in a nonuniform axial magnetic field. For conducting cylinders, the results for uniform and nonuniform magnetic fields are qualitatively identical. This is also observed for nonconducting cylinders in a magnetic field with a constant direction. Instability appears for nonconducting cylinders in a magnetic field with a varying direction, whose magnitude exceeds a certain critical value. This new instability also exists in the absence of rotation and, hence, is independent of its parameters. In addition, the critical magnetic field is independent of the magnetic Prandtl number, which facilitates experimental observation of the new instability.     

Velocity and density field measurements by digital speckle method

Velocity and density field measurements based on image processing of laser speckle or pseudo-speckle pattern have been developed. Laser speckle velocimetry (LSV) or white-light speckle velocimetry (WSV), which corresponds to a high-image-density PIV, gives a local velocity vector map or whole field velocity contour map of a two-dimensional flow field seeded densely with fine particles. This technique has an advantage in high-speed flow measurement without limit of frame rate except for directional ambiguity. New techniques of laser speckle photography and laser speckle interferometry by means of digital image processing have been developed recently for density field measurements. In laser speckle photography, a local density gradient vector map is reconstructed by cross-correlation evaluation between the reference and the object speckle patterns. In laser speckle interferometry, an equi-density contour map is reconstructed by image subtraction between the reference and the object interferometric speckle patterns.     

Measurements of aerodynamic noise and wake flow field in a cooling fan with winglets

The aerodynamic noise and the wake flow field in a cooling fan under actual operating conditions are studied with and without winglets on the fan blades. In order to understand the influence of the winglet, the aerodynamic noise and the wake velocity distribution are measured. The results indicated that overall noise level decreased and the noise spectrum was changed in a low frequency range when the winglet was installed. It was found from the flow visualization and PIV measurement that the influence of the winglet appeared in the traces of the tip vortices and the magnitude of vorticity was reduced in the near wake region, which suggest the observed reduction in aerodynamic noise     

Measurement of aerodynamic noise and unsteady flow field around a symmetrical airfoil

The purpose of this paper is to study the physics of aerodynamic noise generation from the symmetrical airfoil of NACA 0018 in a uniform flow. The relationship between the noise spectrum and the unsteady flow field around the airfoil is studied in an acoustic wind tunnel using flow visualization and PIV analysis. The discrete frequency noise was generated from the airfoil inclined at small angle of attack to the free stream. The flow visualization result indicates the presence of attached boundary layer over the suction side and the separated shear layer over the rear pressure side of the airfoil, when the discrete frequency noise is observed. It is found from the PIV analysis that a large magnitude of vorticity is generated periodically from the pressure side of the trailing edge and it develops into an asymmetrical vortex street in the wake of the airfoil. The periodicity of the shedding vortices was found to agree with that of the frequency of the generated noise.     

Experimental and numerical study on aeroacoustic sound of axial flow fan in room air conditioner

Fan is one of the main noise sources of the room air-conditioners. Axial flow fans are widely used in the outdoor unit of split type air-conditioners. The interaction between the fan and the heat exchanger should be taken into consideration. However, only a few researches have been carried out on predicting the aeroacoustic noise because of the difficulty in obtaining detailed information of the flow field. This paper is to understand the generation mechanism of sound and to develop a prediction method for the flow field and the acoustic pressure field of the outdoor unit. Acoustic measurement is performed in a semi-anechoic chamber. Effects of each components is analyzed. Based on commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, Fluent, Fukano’s model is used to predict the overall sound pressure level of broadband noise. The predicted sound pressure levels based on original Fukano’s model are 7.66 dB and 7.42 dB lower than measurement results at 780 rpm and 684 rpm, respectively. And the errors are about 13%. However, when wake width and relative velocity are both calculated by numerical simulations and the distance to blade trailing edge is taken into consideration, the difference of sound pressure level between measurement and prediction is less than 3.4 dB and errors less than 5.5% while the distance is less than 10 mm. Thus, the distance to blade trailing edge should also be an important parameter for Fukano’s model. In comparison with experimental results, it is clearly shown that the Fukano method based on numerical simulation can provide more accuracy than the original Fukano model and numerical results are in a reliable level.     

Ultrasound velocimetry of ferrofluid spin-up flow measurements using a spherical coil assembly to impose a uniform rotating magnetic field

Ferrofluid spin-up flow is studied within a sphere subjected to a uniform rotating magnetic field from two surrounding spherical coils carrying sinusoidally varying currents at right angles and 90° phase difference. Ultrasound velocimetry measurements in a full sphere of ferrofluid shows no measureable flow. There is significant bulk flow in a partially filled sphere (1-14 mm/s) of ferrofluid or a finite height cylinder of ferrofluid with no cover (1-4 mm/s) placed in the spherical coil apparatus. The flow is due to free surface effects and the non-uniform magnetic field associated with the shape demagnetizing effects. Flow is also observed in the fully filled ferrofluid sphere (1-20 mm/s) when the field is made non-uniform by adding a permanent magnet or a DC or AC excited small solenoidal coil. This confirms that a non-uniform magnetic field or a non-uniform distribution of magnetization due to a non-uniform magnetic field are causes of spin-up flow in ferrofluids with no free surface, while tangential magnetic surface stress contributes to flow in the presence of a free surface.Recent work has fitted velocity flow measurements of ferrofluid filled finite height cylinders with no free surface, subjected to uniform rotating magnetic fields, neglecting the container shape effects which cause non-uniform demagnetizing fields, and resulting in much larger non-physical effective values of spin viscosity η′∼10⁻⁸−10⁻¹² N s than those obtained from theoretical spin diffusion analysis where η′≤10⁻¹⁸ N s. COMSOL Multiphysics finite element computer simulations of spherical geometry in a uniform rotating magnetic field using non-physically large experimental fit values of spin viscosity η′∼10⁻⁸−10⁻¹² N s with a zero spin-velocity boundary condition at the outer wall predicts measureable flow, while simulations setting spin viscosity to zero (η′=0) results in negligible flow, in agreement with the ultrasound velocimetry measurements. COMSOL simulations also confirm that a non-uniform rotating magnetic field or a uniform rotating magnetic field with a non-uniform distribution of magnetization due to an external magnet or a current carrying coil can drive a measureable flow in an infinitely long ferrofluid cylinder with zero spin viscosity (η′=0).     

Direct measurement of the flow field around swimming microorganisms

Swimming microorganisms create flows that influence their mutual interactions and modify the rheology of their suspensions. While extensively studied theoretically, these flows have not been measured in detail around any freely-swimming microorganism. We report such measurements for the microphytes Volvox carteri and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. The minute (～0.3%) density excess of V. carteri over water leads to a strongly dominant Stokeslet contribution, with the widely-assumed stresslet flow only a correction to the subleading source dipole term. This implies that suspensions of V. carteri have features similar to suspensions of sedimenting particles. The flow in the region around C. reinhardtii where significant hydrodynamic interaction is likely to occur differs qualitatively from a puller stresslet, and can be described by a simple three-Stokeslet model.