Flow in a Single Stage

Centrifugal Fan With Vaneless

Hongmin Li
Diffuser and Peripheral Louver
ECR International,
2201 Dwyer Avenue, Outlets
Utica, NY 13504
e-mail: HL3@uakron.edu This paper presents an analysis on the air flows in a single stage centrifugal fan with a
vaneless diffuser and peripheral louver outlets. The performance data of the fan are
obtained experimentally. A numerical fluid flow model is developed. The agreements
between the numerical and experimental results are reasonably good. The performances of
the fan under various working conditions are explained by the flow structures and pressure
distributions. Flow energy analysis shows that the major energy losses in the fan are the
impeller loss, the diffuser loss, and the gap leakage loss. Suggestions on the design and
application of fans with such architecture are given. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4006695]

1 Introduction On the downstream side of the impeller, a squirrel collector,

vaned diffuser, or a vaneless diffuser may be used. The purpose is
Air moving units are popularly used in industry and household
to recover the dynamic energy of the air at the outlet of the impel-
devices, such as blowers, humidifiers, vacuum cleaners, etc. dis-
ler. Torigoe et al. [10] experimentally found that by recovering
cussed by Wake et al. [1]. In most vacuum cleaners, the motor
effectively the dynamic energy at the impeller outlet, the fan
and the fan are built into one assembly, a motor-fan unit. Based
energy efficiency could be increased by 9 %. Flows in a pump
on the path of the air flow, the motor-fan units are categorized
with a squirrel collector were studied numerically by Blanco-
into through-flow type and bypass type. The applications, advan-
Marigorta et al. [11] and experimentally by Parrondo-Gayo et al.
tages, and disadvantages of through flow type fans can be found
[12]. Both results showed that the pressure fluctuation in the dif-
in Refs. [2–4]. In a bypass type fan, the motor cooling air and the
fuser was mainly at the blade passing frequency. The numerical
air flow driven by of the working fan are separated. The disad-
results of Kim et al. [13] showed that the interaction between the
vantage of this architecture is that a motor cooling fan has to be
fan-blades and the diffuser blades generates a single frequency
installed. The advantage is that the fan can move air with dust
noise. Fisher and Inoue [14] experimentally showed that the dif-
and/or water drops. Due to this capability, bypass motor fan sys-
fuser plays a major role in establishing the circumferential varia-
tem are widely used in household and industrial vacuum cleaners
tion in the mean flow at the outlet of the impeller. Karanth and
with carpet-wash and/or wet-clean functions. The structure of
Sharma [15] concluded that there was an optimum diffuser vane
such motor-fan unit with peripheral louver outlets, a commercially
number for the maximum static pressure recovery.
available product made by Johnson Electric, is shown in Fig. 1(a).
Sato et al. [16,17] concluded that the impeller–vaneless diffuser
The efforts found in the literature on fluid flows in various types
architecture could operate over a wide range of flow rates with sta-
of centrifugal fans fall into three groups (1) effects of the gap
ble flows and good performance. The flow fields in a vaneless dif-
leakage, (2) flows in centrifugal impellers and (3) flows in diffus-
fuser (Paone et al. [18]) showed that the flow direction varies with
ers. Wright [2] experimentally measured the gap leakage between
the flow rate. Allos et al. [19] studied the flow in a vaneless diffuser
the impeller and the scroll in a centrifugal blower. The results
experimentally. The flow structures were found three-dimensional
indicated that reducing the gap size could improve the fan per-
and the flow velocities were not uniform from hub to shroud.
formance significantly. The effects of the gap leakage were further
To date, most of the research efforts on the fluid flow in centrif-
explained by Cao and Kang [5] who found that the clearance gap
ugal air moving devices were carried out for centrifugal compres-
not only reduced the fluid head and the fan efficiency but also
sors and high flow rate air blowers. The documented efforts on
affected the flow structure in the impeller. The above effects of
fluid flows in fans, designed specifically for vacuum cleaners,
the gap leakage were confirmed by Yu et al. [4].
have not been able to provide enough information for the design
Nakayama et al. [3] experimentally measured the fluid velocity
and development of new products. The flow process in a bypass
between the blades in a centrifugal impeller. They found that the
centrifugal fan, with a vaneless diffuser and peripheral louver out-
flow near the low pressure side of the blades had a higher relative
lets, is not available in the literature. In the industry, the design of
velocity. Cau et al. [6] experimentally found that the variations of
such fans still relies on experiences and trial and error due to the
the flow velocities at the outlet of an impeller were significant.
lack of understanding of the fluid flow process. This paper will
Zhang et al. [7] showed the flow structure and the uneven relative
experimentally and numerically investigate the fluid flow in a fan
velocity in the blade channels with a secondary flow profile. Zhou
with a centrifugal impeller, a vaneless diffuser, and peripheral
et al. [8] showed that when the flow rate was lower than a certain
louver outlets. Both the overall performance data and the detailed
point, backward flow occurred near the pressure side of the blades.
flow process will be analyzed. The energy loss at every step along
Anagnostopoulos [9] numerically showed that at 20 % of the nor-
the flow path will be quantified to obtain guidance on the design
mal flow rate, a recirculation cell was developed in an impeller.
and application of this class of fans.
At 200 % of the normal flow rate, the flow attacked the blade
leading edge on the suction side.

Contributed by the Fluid Engineering Division of ASME for publication in the
JOURNAL OF FLUIDS ENGINEERING. Manuscript received March 18, 2010; final manu-
script received January 18, 2012; published online September 24, 2012. Assoc.
Editor: Zvi Rusak.
2 Experimental Tests
The performance test of motor-fan systems, called the box test,
is defined in the industry standard. Requirements on the system
setup and data measurements are available in detail in the ASTM

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 respectively. There are 32 louver openings and the total opening
area is 880 mm2. Other than the fluid domain inside the fan, an
inlet spherical region and an outlet region are added. The spheri-
cal surface of the inlet region is considered as a flow inlet with a
uniform pressure. The experimentally measured pressures (with
various orifices) are used in specifying the inlet pressure bound-
ary. The fan shell, sheet steel 0.5 mm in thickness, is a nonslip-
ping wall with a surrounding convection coefficient of 10 W/m2/
K. The surfaces of the impeller, manufactured out of thin alumi-
num sheet, are set to rotating, nonslipping walls. The surfaces of
fan-end bracket are set to be nonslipping adiabatic walls due to
the low conductivity of the bulk molding compound material.
The mathematical formulation of the numerical model includes
the continuity equation, the momentum equation, and the energy
equation. A rotating reference frame approach is employed to
achieve a steady state solution with a transient solver. Such an
approach is chosen due to the following characteristics of the flow
(1). The pressure fluctuation magnitude at the blade passing fre-
quency is low (2). The unsteadiness of the flow does not have no-
ticeable effects on the fan performance prediction. In absolute
velocity and vector format, the equations are

@q

~ ¼0
þ r qU (1)
@t


@ qU ~


þ r  qU~r U
~ þX ~U ~ ¼ rP þ r lrU ~ (2)
@t
@ ðqEÞ


þ r qU~  ðqE þ PÞ ¼ r keff rT þ seff  U
~ (3)
@t

The pressure, density, and temperature are governed by the ideal

gas law P=q ¼ RT. The effective thermal conductivity
keff ¼ k0 þ Cp lt =Prt . The viscosity l ¼ l0 þ lt . The turbulence
viscosity is calculated by lt ¼ qCl j2 =e where Cl ¼ 0:09. The tur-
bulence kinetic energy, j, and dissipation rate, e, are determined by
the turbulence transport equations. The standard j-e turbulence
model is chosen due to the fact that in most of the numerical efforts
found in the literature [5,7–9,15,21], standard j-e turbulence model
was employed and satisfactory results were obtained.
  
@
qCl k2
~
ðqkÞ þ r qkU ¼ r  l0 þ  rk þ Gk þ Gb  qe  YM
@t ere
(4)
Fig. 1 The single-stage motor-fan system with peripheral lou-   

2
ver outlets. (a) The commercially available unit. (b) The three- @
ðqeÞ þ r qeU ~ ¼ r  l0 þ qCl k  re
dimensional domain of the numerical model. @t ere
e e2
code [20]. During the box test, air flow rates, impeller rotation þ C1e ðGk þ C3e Gb Þ  C2e q (5)
k k
speeds, input power, and fan inlet pressure are measured when the
fan is running with a set of standard orifices. The fan air watt, and The empirical constants in the above two equations are
motor-fan system efficiencies are calculated. The performance of C1e ¼ 1:44, C2e ¼ 1:92, rk ¼ 1:0, and re ¼ 1:3. The numerical
the motor side is obtained through the speed torque test, which solution of the above partial differential equations employs a finite
provides the motor side performance data, including the input volume discretization approach and a commercial software pack-
power, output shaft work, shaft torque, and motor side efficiency age, FLUENT. The relaxation factors for the Eqs. (1) through (5)
at all rotation speeds. Details on the testing systems, torque mea- are 0.8, 0.6, 0.9, 0.8, and 0.8, respectively. The iterative solution
surement table, and data acquisition system can be found in a pre- procedure continues until the residual of the energy equation is
vious publication of the present author [21] lower than 106 and the residuals of all other equations are lower
than 104. To increase the confidence on the numerical model, a
grid convergence study is conducted, Table 1. Considering the
3 Numerical Model
The fluid flow in the fan side of the motor-fan unit, Fig. 1(a), is
modeled numerically. The three-dimensional numerical domain is Table 1 Results of the grid independence study, Dorif 5 19.1
shown in Fig. 1(b). The diameter of the impeller is 125 mm. The mm
diameter of the fan shell is 144 mm. The impeller blade leading
Grid #1 #2 #3
edge angle is 40 deg. The blade trailing edge angle is 16 deg. The
blades are single curvature blades with a radius of 125 mm. There Size (k) 998 1738 2437
are seven blades in the impeller and the blade channel inlet width Ws (W) 734.65 739.67 741.84
and the outlet widths are 14 mm and 4.5 mm. The inlet and the Difference ( %) 0.68 0.29
outlet areas of the blade channels are 1405 mm2 and 1750 mm2,

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 Fig. 2 Experimental data. (a) Results of speed torque test. (b)
Results of system performance box test.
trend of the predicted shaft work data, the author thinks that
results with the Grid #3 are fully converged. All the results pre-
sented here after are obtained with Grid #3.
4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Experimental Results. The motor side efficiency and the
shaft work, obtained in the speed torque test, are given in Fig.
2(a). The motor is relatively efficient in a speed range from 23 to
28 kRPM. The maximum efficiency is 73 % at 27 kRPM. The
results of the box test, the motor-fan system efficiency, and the
shaft rotation speed, are given in Fig. 2(b). The system efficiency
reaches its maximum of 35 %, at 19.1 mm (0.75 in.) orifice with
the impeller rotation speed of 27 kRPM. For each orifice, the rota-
tion speed of the motor is known, Fig. 2(b). With this rotation
speed, the motor side efficiencies are obtained with the speed tor-
que curve in Fig. 2(a). With the system efficiency and the motor
side efficiency, the fan side efficiencies are calculated and given
in Fig. 3(a).
4.2 Model Validation. For comparison, the numerically pre-
dicted fan efficiencies are also shown in Fig. 3(a). The impeller
shaft work data are compared in Fig. 3(b). One can conclude that
the agreements are reasonably good at all orifices. The fan-side ef-
ficiency peaks at 19.1 mm orifice, which is the design working
condition. The shaft work transferred to the impeller remains
almost constant for orifices larger than 25.4 mm (1 in.), whereas
the motor-fan unit rotation speed varies only slightly. When the
orifice diameter is reduced beyond 25.4 mm, the shaft work
reduces with it. In the following sections, the flow process will be
investigated and flow energy losses will be analyzed to explain
the fan performance characteristics.
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Fig. 3 Comparisons between the experimental data and the
model predictions. (a) Fan-side efficiency. (b) Impeller shaft
work.
4.3 Leakage Through the Gap. Since the clearance between
the impeller and the fan shell is necessary to avoid rubbing, there
is always a leakage flow through the gap. The energy losses asso-
ciated with the leakage flow vary significantly with the orifice di-
ameter, Fig. 4(a). At 6.4 mm (1/4 in.) orifice, the energy loss of
the leakage flow counts about 14 % of the impeller shaft work. As
the orifice diameter increases, the gap energy loss reduces quickly.
When the orifice diameter reaches 19.1 mm, the gap loss is low-
ered down to 6 % of the shaft work. The ratio of the leakage flow
rate over the net system flow rate is shown in Fig. 4(b). At 6.4 mm
orifice, the leakage flow is 60 % of the net system flow rate. The
leakage flow rate drops quickly as the orifice diameter increases.
At 19.1 mm orifice, the leakage flow rate is reduced to 8 % of the
system net flow rate. All of the flow energy losses are calculated
from the numerically simulated flow field data by integrating the
flow energy data on the inflow and outflow surfaces/interfaces for
each step along the flow path.
The fan shell has the same curvature as the impeller top ring,
which makes the leakage channel width small. At the eye of the
fan shell, an inward lip towards the impeller-eye creates additional
resistance for the leakage flow (Fig. 1). The geometry of the gap
and the flow structure in the gap when the orifice diameter is 19.1
mm can be seen in Figs. 4(c) and 4(d). When the leakage flow
reaches the impeller eye, it turns due to the existence of the lip.
The leakage flow, in a jet form with high velocity, merges into the
impeller blade channel and stays near the impeller ring. Such a
flow structure clearly shows that the leakage flow affects the flow
structure in the impeller. The lip on the fan shell eye not only cre-
ates additional flow resistance, but also guides the leakage flow
OCTOBER 2012, Vol. 134 / 101101-3
 Fig. 4 The gap leakage flow. (a) Energy loss. (b) The leakage flow rate. (c) Flow structure at 19.1 mm orifice. (d) Pressure
distribution at 19.1 mm orifice.
Fig. 5 Flow energy losses in the impeller
and reduces its disturbance on the flow in the impeller. The leak-
age flow process is shown in Fig. 4(c). The pressure differential
that drives the leakage flow can be seen in Fig. 4(d).
The energy loss due to the gap leakage consists of the following
two parts. The first is the pressure potential energy loss, since the
leakage caries air from the high pressure region to the low pres-
sure region. The second part is the dynamic energy of the air. The
leakage air has high speed at the outlet of the impeller and its
speed become low when merged into the impeller channels. The
effect of the leakage flow in this fan architecture agrees qualita-
tively with what Wright [2] reported for a scroll cage centrifugal
101101-4 / Vol. 134, OCTOBER 2012
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blower. The flow structure in Fig. 4(c) qualitatively agrees with
what Cao and Kang presented [5]. The difference is that the leak-
age jet flow direction is different in the present fan because of the
lip on the fan shell.
4.4 Flow in the Impeller. The energy losses in the impeller
at various orifices are given in Fig. 5. The impeller loss reaches its
minimum at 19.1 mm orifice. The total energy loss in the impeller
includes the loss in the impeller-eye region and the loss in the
blade channels. The later one decreases and the former one
increases as the orifice diameter increases. The different charac-
teristics of these two parts in the impeller loss can be explained by
the pressure distribution and flow patterns in the impeller. The
flow structures at the leading and the trailing edges of the blades
for different orifices are shown in Fig. 6. When Dorif ¼ 19.1 mm,
Figs. 6(b) and 6(b0 ), the flow follows the blade angle at the leading
edge. On the trailing edge, the flow turns more in the circumferen-
tial direction after leaving the blade tip. Such a disagreement indi-
cates that the system can be further optimized and improved. At a
smaller orifice, the flow separation and recirculation at the leading
and trailing edges make the energy loss significantly higher.
Figures 6(a) and 6(a0 ) show the disagreement between the flow
directions and the blade leading and trailing angles when
Dorif ¼ 15.9 mm (5/8 in.). Especially on the trailing edge, the flow
impinges onto the tip region and a recirculating flow is formed on
the blade pressure side. At Dorif ¼ 38.1 mm, Figs. 6(c) and 6(c0 ),
the flow direction agrees with the blade angle at the trailing edge,
while a noticeable disagreement can be seen at the leading edge.
The flow at the trailing edge and the velocity distribution in the
vaneless diffuser agree with the results of Paone et al. [18], which
stated that the flow direction in the diffuser region varies with the
Transactions of the ASME
 Fig. 6 Flow directions at the leading and trailing edges of the blades. (a), (a0 ) Dorif 5 15.9
mm. (b), (b0 ) Dorif 5 19.1 mm. (c), (c0 ) Dorif 5 38.1 mm.
flow rate. The flow structure presented above can explain such a
variation. When the flow rate decreases, the radial component of
the air velocity in the diffuser region reduces. The circumferential
velocity component, however, is only determined by the impeller
rotation speed. The variation of the flow rate changed the ratio of
the radial component over the circumferential component.
Another flow phenomenon one notices is the difference between
the flow rotation speeds, at the impeller outlet, and in the diffuser.
As the flow rate reduces, such a difference becomes larger and
establishes a higher gradient of circumferential velocity, which is
another cause of the backward flow into the impeller blade
channels.
Other than the disagreement between the flow directions and
the blade angles, energy loss is also caused by the fluid velocity
variation in the blade channels. Figure 7 shows the relative flow in
the impeller when Dorif ¼ 19.1 mm. At the inlet of the channels,
flow velocity is high. The velocity is reduced and reaches its mini-
mum at the middle section of the channels. When the air
approaches the outlet of the impeller, the velocity is increased
again. Such deceleration and acceleration of the fluid lead to an
additional flow energy loss. The flow velocity distribution across
the blade channels shown in Fig. 7 is different from what was
Fig. 7 Relative flow velocity variation in the impeller.
Dorif 5 19.1 mm.
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described by Nakayama et al. [3], who stated that the flow at the
blade suction side had a higher velocity. Figure 7 shows a higher
relative velocity at the suction side of the blades in the entrance
section. At the blade tip region, the relative velocity is higher on
the blade pressure side. The disagreement, between what is pre-
sented here and what was reported by Nakayama et al., is an indi-
cation that the actual flow velocity distribution across the blade
channels depends on the blade design and the working condition
of the impeller.
With the current design, the energy loss before the air enters
the impeller blade channels is high at large orifices. This part of
the energy loss is due to the small flow area at the fan shell eye
and the caused flow velocity variation and flow direction changes
in the eye region, in which there are no structures guiding the
flow. Figures 8(a) and 8(b) shows the flow structure and pressure
distribution in the eye region at 19.1 mm orifice, while Figs. 8(c)
and 8(d) gives the flow velocity and pressure distributions at 38.1
mm orifice. Before entering the blade channels, the air is first
accelerated and then decelerated. Correspondingly, the pressure of
the air first reduces and then increases. When the orifice diameter
is smaller than 15.9 mm, the energy loss in the eye region
becomes negligibly small. The variation of the flow velocity is
mainly determined by the flow area along the flow path. The area
of the fan shell eye is 590 mm2, while the total impeller channels’
inlet area is 1405 mm2. In the meantime, the flow makes a 90
degree turn towards the radial direction in the impeller eye region.
With the above presented numerical results, one can conclude
that the impeller employed in this motor-fan unit has a relative
high energy loss. The minimum energy loss, at 19.1 mm orifice, is
still 25 % of the impeller shaft work due to the following design
flaws (1). The disagreement between the flow direction and the
blade angle at the trailing edge of the blades (2). The variation of
the relative velocity of the air in the blade channels (3). The large
flow velocity and pressure variations in the impeller eye region.
4.5 Diffuser Energy Loss. The total diffuser loss of the fan
at various orifices is given in Fig. 9(a). At 19.1 mm orifice, the
diffuser loss is 16 % of the shaft work. The ratio of diffuser loss
over shaft work reaches its minimum of 13 % at 30 mm orifice.
The diffuser loss drops quickly when the orifice diameter is
reduced beyond 15.9 mm. At the outlet of the rotating impeller,
the flow velocity is high. The air flow velocity drops significantly
when the air from the impeller outlet approaches the louver open-
ings. The diffuser is a relatively small region without restrictions/
guides for the flow. The pressure difference between the impeller
OCTOBER 2012, Vol. 134 / 101101-5
 Fig. 8 The flow structures (a), (c) and pressure distributions (b), (d) in the eye region of the
impeller. (a), (b) Dorif 5 19.1 mm. (c), (d) Dorif 5 38.1 mm.

Fig. 9 Flow in the vaneless diffuser. (a) Energy losses at various orifices. (b) Flow structure
at 19.1 mm orifice. (c) Velocity magnitude distribution. (d) Pressure distribution.

outlet and the louver openings is small. The dynamic energy of
the air at the impeller outlet is mostly lost due to the ineffective
velocity head recovery. To quantitatively explain the energy loss,
the flow velocity and pressure variation in the diffuser are shown
in Figs. 9(b) through 9(d). At 19.1 mm orifice, the average air ve-
locity at the impeller outlet is 104 m/s. The average velocity at the
louver openings is 43 m/s. The pressures increase from the impel-
ler outlet to the louver openings is 1.89 kPa. The flow dynamics
energy is reduced by 160 Watts, while the pressure potential
energy is only increased by 54.7 Watts, per unit mass. Only 34 %
of the dynamic energy is recovered into pressure potential energy
and the rest, 66 %, is lost. In Fig. 10, the particle lines in the dif-
fuser, showing the flow path, appear smooth without sharp turns.
The streamlined flow particle lines indicate that the dynamic
energy loss is the main part of the diffuser loss.
The flow velocity shown in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10 explains another
characteristic of the flow. At 19.1 mm orifice, the blade tip veloc-
ity is 180 m/s. The high speed of the air is only at the impeller
blade tips surfaces. The quick drop of the flow velocity away from
the impeller surface establishes a low average flow speed at the
impeller outlet and even lower speed in the vaneless diffuser. At
this speed level, the compressibility of air due to solid fluid

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 Fig. 10 Fluid particle lines in the diffuser. Dorif 5 19.1 mm.
interaction is not significant. In other words, the Mach number of
the flow is not a representative parameter.
Compared to vaned diffuser, the disadvantage of the vaneless
diffuser is the ineffectiveness on dynamic energy recovery
[16,17]. The advantages are the low noise level and the wider sta-
ble flow rate range. Since there are no objects in the diffuser to
interact with the rotating pressure field generated by the impeller,
the single frequency noise at the blade passing frequency and its
harmonics are low [13–15]. Such a pressure field without rotating-
stationary pressure field interaction can be seen in Fig. 9(d). With
the current fan, the flow is stable without rotating-stall even if the
orifice is reduced to zero. This flow phenomenon qualitatively
agrees with what was reported by Sato et al. [16,17], that the
vaneless diffuser has comparatively wider stable flow rate range.
Now it can be stated that with a combination of centrifugal impel-
ler and a vaneless diffuser, the flow in the fan can be stable even
when the flow rate approaches zero. In determining the fan archi-
tecture in a product development period, the balance of energy ef-
ficiency, noise level, and operational flow rate range should be
considered together. When the noise level and stable flow rate
range are the main concerns, a vaneless diffuser is recommended.
4.6 Flow at the Louver Openings. The dynamic energy
associated with the flow velocity at the louver openings is not
counted in the industry standard performance test of motor-fan
systems. Due to this reason, we still consider this part of dynamic
energy as an energy loss, Fig. 11. The outlet loss increases with
Fig. 11 The dynamic energy at the louver openings
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Fig. 12 Flow structure (a) and pressure variation (b) at the lou-
ver openings. Dorif 5 19.1 mm.
the orifice diameter. At 19.1 mm orifice, the outlet loss is 3 % of
the shaft work. Figure 12 shows the flow structure and pressure
distribution at the louver openings. One can see that after the fluid
leaves the louver opening, the air velocity is further reduced,
while the pressure remains the same.
Compared to the squirrel volute collector (Torigoe et al. [10],
Blanco-Marigorta et al. [11], Parrondo-Gayo et al. [12]) and
ported outlets (Li [21]), the disadvantage of louver outlets is its
high energy loss at high flow rates. The advantages are the follow-
ing: (1) the local pressure variation at the louver openings is low
and axially symmetric. Such low pressure variation will not be
able to affect the flow field in the diffuser. (2) the stationary pres-
sure field at the louver openings does not interfere with the rotat-
ing pressure field of the impeller. (3) lower noise level is
expected. (4) The total area of the louver openings can be selected
based on the design working flow rate of the fan to make the out-
flow dynamic energy relatively small. The louver openings can be
designed in such a way that the rotating impeller cannot be
directly seen from the outside through the louver openings, as in
the current fan. The direct noises radiation from the impeller can
be isolated.
5 Conclusions
A numerical model is developed for the fluid flow in a bypass
type centrifugal air moving fan with a vaneless diffuser and pe-
ripheral louver outlets. The agreements between the model predic-
tions and the experimentally measured fan performance data are
reasonably good. The flow simulations with the numerical model
provide the flow details in the fan. The energy losses in each part
of the fan along the flow path are quantified. Results show that the
current motor-fan system design is reasonably good at the design
working condition in the following aspects: (1) the motor side and
the fan side both reach their maximum efficiencies. (2) the air
flow roughly follows the impeller blade angles at the leading
edge. (3) There is no flow separation and recirculation in the
OCTOBER 2012, Vol. 134 / 101101-7
 impeller. (4) The flow path in the vaneless diffuser is streamlined. [2] Wright, T., 1984, “Centrifugal Fan Performance With Inlet Clearance,” ASME
The outlet energy loss at the louver openings counts only 3 % of J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power, 106(4), pp. 906–912.
[3] Nakayama, Y., Aoki, K., Yamamoto, T., and Ohta, H., 1985, “Measurement of
the shaft work. The current design needs the following modifica- Relative Velocity Distribution in Centrifugal Blower Impeller,” Bull. JSME,
tions to improve the energy efficiency. (1) Redesign the impeller 28(243), pp. 1978–1985.
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