Influences of Splitter Blades on the Centrifugal Fan Performances

Abstract

Centrifugal fan and compressors with splitter blades are widely utilized in engineering practices. A detail investigation of the influences of splitter blades on a forward-curved centrifugal fan performances is presented in the paper. The study includes two parts: experiment and numerical calculation. The experiments were produced in a specific impeller with adjustable splitter blades in order to get the performances in different conditions. The internal flow field in the impeller was calculated by means of FEASM (Finite Element Approximate Solution Method, Gu, 1984). The experimental result show that changing the circumferential positions of the splitter blades has a noticeble influence on the fan performance, the incidence of splitter blades also has a certain effect on it, and properly lengthened splitter blades can raise the total pressure coefficient. The velocity and load distributions on the blade surfaces calculated can be used to analyse the phenomena above satisfactorily.