Free and Non-Free Vortex Design for Axial Fans with Circumferential Sweep through CFD Techniques

The sound generated by axial flow fans has become increasingly important in several industrial areas. These devices represent considerable noise sources that must be considered from the design stage. The scope of this research work is to present an axial fan design methodology based on the theory of the wing lift and to compare the aerodynamic and aeroacoustics behavior with the free vortex and the non-free vortex conditions. The effect of forward circumferential sweep on the rotor blades is analyzed in both conditions, which consists of a displacement in the tangential direction in the direction of rotor rotation. A cubic polynomial function is proposed for the construction of the blade geometry with circumferential sweep. It defines the center line of the blade and it is taken at 50% of the leading edge of each blade profile. The methodology for analyzing aeroacoustics behavior in fans is based on the integration of Computational Aeroacoustics and Computational Fluid Dynamics in order to analyze aerodynamic behavior, sound power level and sound pressure level at the preliminary design stage. It was verified that although both rotors present a similar aerodynamic behavior (the NFV rotor has a slightly lower performance), according to the analysis of local sound sources, the NFV rotor presents a slight decrease in the sound sources. It was also verified that the NFV rotor presents 2.2 dB less in sound pressure level than the FV rotor.