Centrifugal Blower CFD Simulation by ANSYS Fluent Tutorial

Description

Description

This simulation is about a Centrifugal Blower via ANSYS Fluent software. We perform this CFD project and investigate it by CFD analysis.

The blower is a device for blowing high-pressure air, which generally has applications such as dust cleaning. For example, a blower is used to clean computer parts and equipment.

With its rotational motion, the central motor of this device creates high pressure in the air and directs this high-pressure air out of the device’s outlet. The blower designed in this modeling is centrifugal.

The centrifugal blower can absorb air from its central part, and then this airflow enters the central impellers in the form of a fin disc. The rotational motion of the blades at high speed causes the airflow to rotate.

The centrifugal force increases the air pressure and, consequently, the airflow’s velocity. Finally, this high-pressure air is directed to the outside environment through a duct installed on the blower’s outer body.

The present model is designed in two dimensions using Design Modeler software. The model is a two-dimensional centrifugal blower designed to reduce computational costs. Since the blower is centrifugal, the current input is from the model’s center, and its output is located in the model perimeter.

The model is then meshed by ANSYS Meshing software. The model mesh is unstructured, and 172824 cells have been created.

Centrifugal Blower Method

In this simulation, a zone around the blades is distinguished from the entire computational domain to define the rotational flow of air. The Frame Motion has been used for this zone in cell zone conditions.

Doing so assumes that instead of defining rotational motion for the blades at a given speed, rotational flow is defined for the air around the blades at the same speed. This rotational motion has a rotational speed of 260 rad/s.

Also, since the model’s prominent nature is related to pressure changes, the pressure boundary condition is used at the input (central part of the model) and the output (outer part of the model).

Centrifugal Blower Conclusion

After simulation, two-dimensional contours of pressure, velocity, and turbulence kinetic energy are obtained. Also, two-dimensional pathlines and two-dimensional velocity vectors are obtained.

The results show that the airflow enters the blower’s central part and experiences high-pressure rotational motion in the areas adjacent to the blades. Then the pressure and speed of the airflow increase and are directed outwards from the blower outlet.