Reduction of aerodynamic noise of single-inlet centrifugal fan with inclined volute tongue

Abstract

The effect of inclined volute tongue on the aerodynamic noise and performance of a centrifugal fan was investigated by experimental test in this article. The present work highlights that the effect of both the clearance and the radius of the volute tongue has an influence on the performance and noise. The experimental tests of various models aim to obtain the aerodynamic noise and performance characteristics of several fan models. First, the experimental results of centrifugal fan performance are tested by the standard test equipment of aerodynamic performance. The experimental results of centrifugal fan aerodynamic noise are measured by the standard test equipment of experimental noise. Our experimental results mainly show that the generation of aerodynamic noise is significantly correlated with the clearance and radius of the volute tongue. Certain geometries of the volute tongue could reduce the noise of the centrifugal fan without decreasing the performance. It is experimentally demonstrated that the high A-weighted sound pressure levels mainly concentrate on a range of from 700 to 7000 Hz frequency by observing the each 1/3 octave band frequency for four fan models. The comparison of aerodynamic noise results also demonstrates that the inclined volute tongue may not only produce a deceasing of about 1.58 dB compared to that of the baseline model. We further obtain that the properly inclined volute tongue not only has positive performance features compared with the baseline model but also effectively controls the broadband frequency noise of single-inlet centrifugal fan.