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Investigation of Fan Casing Aerodynamic Noise at the Blade Passing

Frequency

Conference Paper · January 2009

DOI: 10.1115/FEDSM2009-78070

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 Proceedings of FEDSM2009
ASME 2009 Fluids Engineering Division Summer Meeting
August 2-5, 2009, Vail, Colorado USA

FEDSM2009-78070

INVESTIGATION OF FAN CASING AERODYNAMIC NOISE AT THE BLADE PASSING

FREQUENCY

Jian-Cheng CAI*, Da-Tong QI, Fu-An LU

Institute of Fluid Machinery, School of Energy & Power Engineering, Xi’an JiaoTong University
Xi’an , Shaanxi, P.R.China, 710049
Tel: +86-13201613744, E-Mail: 763421532@qq.com

ABSTRACT centrifugal fans, the BPF vibroacoustic noise was much

From our previous studies of fan casing vibroacoustics, it
was found that noise caused by casing vibration was fairly
small compared to its aeroacoustic counterpart. In the present
work, a numerical study on the aerodynamic tonal noise of a
centrifugal fan casing was carried out. A 3-D numerical
simulation of turbulent unsteady flow on the whole impeller-
volute configuration was performed using computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) technique in order to obtain the pressure
fluctuations on the casing wall which serve as aeroacoustic
dipole sources. Three different flow rates were simulated: the
best efficiency point (BEP), 1.382×BEP and the maximal flow
rate (2.104×BEP). Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) was applied
to the time series of pressure fluctuations to extract the blade
passing frequency (BPF) component constituting the source
term of the wave equation. Boundary element method (BEM)
was used to solve the inhomogeneous frequency-domain wave
equation. The influence of the casing on the sound field was
taken into account in simulating the noise radiation by taking
it as a rigid body. Results showed that the presence of the
casing could greatly affect sound propagation. With the
increase of flow rate, the radiated sound power rose drastically.
The tonal blade noise was also investigated using Lowson’s
formulation of rotor noise model, and the results showed that
it’s smaller than the tonal casing noise.
Keywords: Centrifugal Fans, Volute Casing, Aerodynamic
Tonal Noise, Blade Passing Frequency
INTRODUCTION
The noise sources of centrifugal fans, blowers and
compressors consist of both aerodynamic and vibroacoustic
noise. Previous studies showed that to small and middle-sized
smaller than the aeroacoustic counterpart (Koopmann et al.,
1991; Cai et al., 2009). Therefore, this paper focused on tonal
aerodynamic noise. The approaches used to solve the
aeroacoustic problems can be generally classified into two
broad categories: direct computation and indirect, or hybrid,
computation, more specifically: 1) Full Flow-Field Solution:
Calculation of the full nonlinear flow-field; 2) Acoustic
Analogy: Nonlinear near-field solution plus Ffowcs Williams
and Hawking equation (FW-H equation, see equation (2)); 3)
Nonlinear Near-Field Plus Kirchhoff Method (Wang et al.,
2006; Lyrintzis et al., 1989). Computational aeroacoutics
(CAA) is concerned with the prediction of the aerodynamic
sound source and the transmission of the generated sound. The
full, time-dependent, compressible Navier-Stokes equations
describe these phenomena. Although recent advances in CFD
and in computer technology have made the first approach
plausible, direct extension of current CFD technology to CAA
requires addressing several technical difficulties in the
prediction of both the sound generation and its transmission
(Lyrintzis, 2003). Acoustic analogy theory was introduced by
Lighthill and extended by Curle, Ffowcs—Williams and
Hawkings (Goldstein, 1976). The method of deriving the FW-
H equation is efficient and physically illuminating. One of the
advantages the FW-H approach over the Kirchhoff method is
that it has physical meaning, which is helpful in understand
the noise generation (Brentner and Farassat, 1998). Three
kinds of source terms in FW-H equation, namely the
monopole, dipole and quadrupole represent different kinds of
sound generating mechanism. Therefore, in this study the
acoustic analogy approach was employed to study the
aerodynamic tonal noise of a centrifugal fan.
Numerical studies about unsteady flow fields and noise
generation of turbomachinery through the CFD and CAA

1 Copyright © 2009 by ASME

techniques are now feasible thanks to the powerful computers. rotor noise model (Goldstein, 1976), and the results showed
Ballesteros-Tajadura et al. (2008), Jeon et al. (2004), Khelladi that it’s much smaller than the tonal casing noise.
et al. (2008), Liu et al. (2007) and Youni et al. (2007) studied
aerodynamic noise radiation of fans through the following NOMENCLATURE
approach: Unsteady flow fields are first obtained by CFD, then B blade numbers
sound sources are extracted, and finally sound radiation to free c speed of sound
field is calculated by integrating FW-H equation ignoring the outlet diameter of the impeller
d
presence of casings.
D Doppler amplification factor due to the
The noise produced by a rotating machine has two main
moving source
characteristics: the broadband noise and the tonal noise.
f a function indicating the instantaneous
location of the moving surface f ( xv, t ) = 0
Experimental and analytical studies were conducted to
understand the acoustic characteristics of turbomachinery. The
results show that BPF noise in relation to the impeller rotation Fi force components exerted on the fluid by the
plays an important role in sound generation (Khelladi et al. body
2008; Ohta et al., 1996; Sun et al., 2004; Raitor et al., 2008). G Green function
Neise (1992) summarized that aeroacoustic dipole source was J Bessel function of the first kind
m
dominant for almost all aerodynamic noise of fans. Liu et al.
k wave number
(2007) studied the noise contribution of various aeroacoustic
N rotational speed (rpm)
sources about a centrifugal fan and concluded that the dipoles v
distributed over the volute tongue surface and raised from the M Mach number associated to the absolute
unsteady force fluctuation were the dominant sound sources. velocity of the source
Mach number of the source in the direction of
Mr v
observer given by M r = M ⋅ rv / r
v
n unit normal vector
p pressure
p′ sound pressure
p0 mean pressure

Pt total pressure
Q volumetric flow rate
v
r distance between the observer and the source
v v v
given by r = ro − rs
T net torque acting on the impeller
Tij Lighthill’s tensor
Fig.1 Schematic of the volute casing
t reception time
This paper studied the characteristics of noise radiation u2 peripheral velocity of the impeller outlet
caused by the volute casing dipole source. An industrial u2 = 2πN / 60 × d / 2
centrifugal fan was picked as the research target. The sketch of v
v velocity
its casing is shown in Fig.1.The fan works at a rotating speed
δ Dirac function
N=2900 rpm with 12 forward curved blades. The outlet
diameter of the impeller d=400mm. The blade-passing δ ij Kronecker delta
frequency is 2900×12/60=580Hz. Only the BPF component ρ density
was concerned because this tonal noise is usually much larger
ρ0 mean density
than other components. Multi-domain BEM approach was
employed to simulate the sound fields generated by casing τ emission time given by τ = t − r / c
surface dipoles: domain 1 and 2 represent the interior and ϕ flow coefficient ϕ = Q /(d 2 u 2π / 4)
exterior fields of the volute respectively. Sound transmission ψ total pressure coefficient ψ = Pt / ρu 2 2
from the domain 1 to domain 2 only happens through the
ω circular frequency
casing inlet and outlet openings, because the casing is viewed
as rigid and scatters the incident sound wave. The tonal blade
noise was also investigated using Lowson’s formulation of

2 Copyright © 2009 by ASME


STUDY OF INTERNAL FLOW FIELDS
CFD technology has been proven to be a very useful tool
in the analysis of the internal flow of turbomachinery both in
design and performance prediction, and has been widely
employed in simulating the fully 3-D unsteady flow in
centrifugal turbomachinery (Ballesteros-Tajadura et al., 2006;
Khelladi et al, 2005; Majidi, 2005). In this paper, a three
dimensional numerical simulation of the complete unsteady
flow on the whole impeller-volute configuration was carried
out using the CFD code ANSYS CFX.
Because of the low Mach number (Ma<0.3) flow of this
centrifugal fan, the fluid was assumed to be incompressible.
Thus, the continuity equation and the momentum equation
could be solved independent of the energy equation. Due to the
low pressure rise, we further regarded the flow as isothermal
。
(air at 25 C). Since the internal flow is typically three-
dimensional turbulent, it is appropriate to solve the Reynolds
averaged Navier-Stokes equations (RANS) economically
without loss of resolving the main characteristics of flow fields
such as mean pressure fluctuations. Ayer et al. (2005), Reese et
al. (2007) and Tournour et al. (2003) pointed out that by
solving unsteady RANS together with turbulence model it can
provide adequate unsteady flow information to predict the
tonal noise of fans, but Large Eddy Simulation (LES) should
be employed when predicting broadband noise.
For the three dimensional calculations, structured
hexahedral cells were used to define the inlet zone, the
impeller and the volute (with a total of 1,597,262 cells). The
gaps between the impeller and the casing on both the shroud
and hub sides were simulated. Some mesh cross-sections are
shown in Fig.2. Concerning the numerical simulation
parameters, total pressure inlet condition (1 atm) was applied
to simulate drawing air from the ambient. Different mass flow
rates were applied at the outlet according to different operating
conditions. The turbulence characteristics of the flow were
(a)
Fig.2 Sketch of CFD mesh: (a) Mesh of circumference at midspan of volute; (b) Mesh at meridional plane
modeled by the standard k-ε equations. The scalable wall-
function was used to describe the near wall velocity. A second
order high resolution discretization of advection terms was
applied, and the transient terms were approximated by second
order backward Euler scheme. The sliding mesh technique was
applied to the interfaces in order to allow the unsteady
interactions between the impeller and the volute casing. The
RMS residue was lower than 10-4.
The CFD simulation processes began with steady flow
calculations using the frozen-rotor approach. In this case, the
relative position of the impeller and the casing does not change
during the calculation. For unsteady calculations, the grids
change their relative positions during the calculation according
to the angular velocity of the impeller. A complete impeller
revolution was divided into 512 time steps, i.e. each time step
spanning 60/2900/512=4.041e-5s. The chosen time step was
related to the rotational speed of the impeller and it was small
enough to get the necessary time resolution and to capture the
phenomena of the pressure fluctuations. A total of 2048 time
steps were sampled.
The results of simulation were satisfying. In Fig.3, the
numerical and experimental performance curves for the tested
fan are compared. The efficiency is calculated by the ratio of
the total pressure rise achieved by the fluid to the power
supplied to the impeller:
Q( pt 2 − pt 1 )
η= (1)
T (2πN / 60)
where Q and pt represent the volumetric flow rate and the total
pressure, respectively, and T and N are the net torque acting on
the impeller and the rotational speed, respectively. We can see
that the shapes of efficiency curve are very similar, though the
numerical values are a little larger than the experimental ones.
The volumetric flow rate of BEP is 17.1m3/min, i.e. the flow
coefficient: 0.0374. The numerical total pressure rises are
mostly lager than the experimental results, especially at large
flow rate. This may be ascribed to that numerical simulation
(b)
3 Copyright © 2009 by ASME
 (a)
Fig.3 Performance curves of the fan (a) Efficiency; (b) Total pressure rise
(a)
Fig.4 (a) Location of pressure monitoring point; (b) Evolution of pressure fluctuations with time steps
cannot precisely calculate various flow losses such as losses
relating to leakage flow, secondarily flow, separation and wake
etc., and/or all kinds of experimental errors.
Unsteady simulations corresponding to three flow rates
(the best efficiency point (BEP), 1.382×BEP and the maximal
flow rate: 2.104×BEP) were performed. Fig.4 shows pressure
fluctuation evolutions of a monitoring point near the volute
tongue. One can see the quasi-periodicity of pressure
fluctuations. The shapes are sinusoidal in nature, with the BPF
as the primary frequency. The amplitude of pressure
fluctuations becomes larger as the flow rate increases.
The pressure fluctuations served as the dipole sources and
the radiated sound fields was studied in the following section.
STUDY OF TONAL CASING AERODYNAMIC NOISE
A typical problem in aeroacoustics ones may want to solve
is the prediction of the noise generated by an unsteady flow in
a propagating medium. Instead of considering acoustical waves
as part of the complete flow field and solving the full set of
equations of Gas Dynamics, the acoustic analogy theory
replaces the actual problem by an equivalent problem of
acoustic radiation in a medium at rest with equivalent acoustic
sources. This approach splits the aeroacoustic simulation
problem in two steps:
1. Solve the turbulent flow with the CFD methods.
(b)
(b)
2. Based on the flow information provided by the CFD
codes, define equivalent sources and take into account
the noise radiation with CA (computational acoustics)
method.
The main limitation of the acoustic analogy is the implicit
assumption of one-way coupling from flow to acoustics. The
first step was achieved in the previous section by ANSYS CFX.
We executed the second step in LMS SYSNOISE. SYSNOISE
is a program for modeling acoustic wave behavior in fluids,
fluid-structure interaction, using implementations of the finite
element and boundary element methods.
FW-H equation is given by
1 ∂2 p′ ∂2 p′ ∂ Tij ∂ ∂
( ) ( )
2
− = − pijnjδ( f ) + ρ0v j njδ( f ) (2)
c2 ∂t 2 ∂xi 2 ∂xi ∂xj ∂xi ∂t
where δ(f) is the Delta function indicating the location of body
surface, and nj is the direction cosine of the outward (from the
body) normal to the surface. The first term, containing the
Lighthill’s stress tensor is the quadrupole source. The second is
the dipole source, localized on the body surface (thanks to the
presence of δ(f)), and contains the quantity pijnj, which is the
normal force exerted by the body on the fluid (pij=(p-p0)δij-τij,
τij is the fluid viscous stress tensor.). The last term is the
monopole source, which is also located only on the body
surface. vjnj is the body normal velocity into the fluid, this term
4 Copyright © 2009 by ASME
therefore corresponds to noise being generated by the unsteady place near the impeller outlet also has intensive dipole source.
injection of volume into the fluid by the body motion. This is ascribed to the strong interaction of the incoming air
Only the dipole source was taken in account in this study from the rotating impellor with the stationary casing. With the
because of the low Mach number flow of the fan. Due to the increase of flow rate, the pressure fluctuations on the casing
high Reynolds number, pij reduces to (p-p0)δij. Therefore, after
Fourier transform, equation (2) is reduced to
∂
(∇ 2 + k 2 ) p′ = (( p − p0 )niδ ( f ) ) (3)
∂xi
where k is the wave number, defined as k=ω/c. To stationary
body such as the volute casing, this leads to the following free-
field radiation equation:
v v
v v ∂G(r ,r ) v
′ (ro ) = ∫∫P(rs ) o s dS(rs )
pinc (4)
S
∂n
v
where pinc′ (ro ) is the radiated pressure and
v
P (rs ) = −( p − p0 ) (5)
is the flow pressure on the boundary, constituting the surface
dipole source boundary condition. G ( rvo , rvs ) is the free-field
Green function, defined by: (a)
v v
v v
− jk r −r
e o s
(6)
G (ro , rs ) = v v (in 3D)
4π ro − rs

Multi-Domain direct boundary element method (MD-

DBEM) was used to calculate the casing noise radiation. The
acoustic pressure and the normal velocity constitute the
primary variables for the direct boundary element method.
Continuity of acoustic pressure and the normal particle
velocity is enforced at the interfaces of each sub-domain BEM
model. Two models were constructed, one for the acoustic
interior problem and one for the exterior problem of the
casing. These two models are coupled together at the openings,
i.e. the inlet and outlet. The scattering effect on the incident
sound wave by the casing was taken into account through
considering the casing as a rigid body, i.e. the normal particle (b)
velocity is zero on its surface. The total sound pressure field is
separated into its components, the incident and scattered fields.
On the casing surface, the incident pressure p′inc and the
scattered pressure p′sca are such that the normal velocity
vanishes. Thus the casing rigid boundary is enforced, and the
sound generated by the interior surface dipole source can only
transmit to the exterior model through the inlet and outlet
openings of the fan.
The acoustic BEM mesh was coarser than the CFD
surface mesh, therefore an interpolation of pressure from the
CFD results to acoustic was carried out. FFT was performed to
the temporal pressure fluctuations to obtain the BPF
component. Fig.5 shows the BPF dipole source distributions on
the casing inner surface. One can see the dipole strength
around the volute tongue is much larger than other places. (c)
Therefore, the dipoles distributed over the volute tongue Fig.5 Dipole source strength: (a) BEP; (b) 1.382×BEP; (c)
surface are the dominant sound source of the casing noise. The 2.104×BEP

5 Copyright © 2009 by ASME

wall rise rapidly. This phenomenon is especially obvious on the significantly.
volute tongue surface. If ignoring the casing scattering effect on sound field, i.e.
A spherical acoustic field mesh, whose radius is 1m to the the sound was radiated into free field by the surface dipole, the
center of the volute, was constructed in the exterior domain in results were quite different. We analyzed the BEP flow rate
order to calculate the radiated sound power passing through it only in order to make a contrast with the MD-DBEM
and to view the sound pressure distribution. The calculated approach. The radiated sound power was 13.4 mW, much
sound power and the maximum sound pressure on the larger than 1.00 mW of the MD-DBEM model. Comparison of
spherical field mesh are shown in Table 1. From Table 1, one sound pressure distributions on the spherical field mesh with
can see that with the increase of flow rate, the radiated sound and without the casing influence is shown in Fig.7. In MD-
power rises drastically. DBEM model, the interior sound can only propagate to the
exterior domain through the casing inlet and outlet openings,
Table 1: Results of tonal casing noise therefore we can see that places directly facing to the inlet and
Flow Rate BEP 1.382BEP 2.104BEP outlet openings have large sound pressure values. While to the
Sound Power (mW) 1.00 6.15 21.3 free-field model, places facing the front and back side of the
Sound Pressure (Pa) 0.483 1.21 2.29 casing have large sound pressure values. Besides, the sound
pressures of the free-field model are much larger than the MD-
DBEM model. This shows that the casing can inhibit the
sound propagation from the interior domain to the exterior
domain greatly.

STUDY OF TONAL BALDE NOISE

Due to the low Mach number flow and the blade size is
small, only the loading noise (dipole) was analyzed using the
Lowson’s formulation. The thickness noise (monopole) was
omitted. The time-domain solution to FW-H equation with
only the moving dipole source is given by:
v 1 ri ∂  Fi 
′ ( ro , t ) = −
p inc ∫∫
4 π S cDr 2 
∂τ  D 
 dS (7)

where τ = t − r / c , and D =| 1 − M r | is the Doppler amplification

Fig.6 Surface acoustic pressure on the exterior model (BEP):
Casing noise
Fig.6 shows the surface acoustic pressure distribution on
the exterior model at the BEP flow rate. It can be observed that
the noise is radiated from both the inlet and outlet
factor due to the moving source (in the relative reference
v
frame) with M r = M ⋅ rv / r (Mach number of the sources in the
direction of observing point). Fi=pijnj is the force exerted by
the body on the fluid. To periodic functions, the Fourier
transform is given by:

(a) (b)
Fig.7 Sound pressure distributions (BEP): (a) With casing; (b) Without casing

6 Copyright © 2009 by ASME

 v ω 2π ω v where kn ≡ nω c is the nth harmonic of the rotational
φ ( ro , m ) =
2π ∫ 0
φ ( ( ro , t ) e i m ω t d t (8)
frequency, ( Fr (m) , Ft (m) , Fa (m) ) is the mth Fourier coefficients
Fourier transform and integration by parts of equation (7)
of ( Fr , Ft , Fa ) calculated by equation (8), and M rs = rsω c is
gives:
v im ω 2 2π ω r F the sound source rotational Mach number. J ′ denotes the
p i′n c ( ro , m ) =
8π c S
2 ∫∫ ∫ 0
i
r2
i
e im ω (τ + r c ) d τ d S (9)
derivative of the Bessel function.
v v
In Fig.8, the dipole source F rotates around e3 with an
v
angular velocity ω . F can be decomposed into radial,
tangential and axial components ( Fr , Ft , Fa ). According to
Fig.8, the distance between the source and the observer is
given by

(a)

Fig.8 Rotor coordinates

 ro sin( θ ) cos( ϕ ) − rs cos( ωτ )   r1 

v     (10)
r =  ro sin( θ ) sin( ϕ ) − rs sin( ωτ )  =  r2 
 ro cos( θ )  r 
   3 
v
Over each element dS of the blade surface, a force F is
applied, it’s defined by (b)
 F r cos( ωτ ) + F t sin( ωτ )   F1 
v     (11)
F =  F r sin( ωτ ) − F t cos( ωτ )  =  F 2 
  F 
 Fa   3
Substituing equation (10) and (11) into (9), and using the
following generating function
∞
e − iz cos β
= ∑
m = −∞
( − i ) m mJ m ( z ) e − im β (12)

( J m (z ) is the Bessel function of the first kind.), the sound

pressure at the nth harmonic produced by an impeller of B
identical equally spaced blades is given by
v inB 2ω inω B ( ro c ) ∞
p in′ c ( ro , nB ) =
4π cro
e ∑
∫∫S m = − ∞ e
i ( n B − m )( ϕ − π / 2 )

(13)
×{i sin θ J nB ′ − m ( k n rs sin θ ) Fr ( m )
(c)
nB − m
+ [cos θ Fa ( m ) − Ft ( m )] J nB − m ( k n rs sin θ )}dS Fig.9 Pressure field on an impeller blade: (a) BEP; (b)
nBM rs 1.382×BEP; (c) 2.104×BEP

7 Copyright © 2009 by ASME

 (a) (b)
Fig.10 Force spectra of portion 2: (a) Location of the force; (b) Spectra

If the characteristic length L, frequency fc and overall

mean Doppler factor D of a source meet
cD (14)
L <<
fc
we call it a compact source. The numerical integration of
equation (13) requires a surface discretization. If the maximum
size of the discretization for each element over the surface
satisfies the compactness condition (14), equation (13)
becomes:
v inB 2ω inω B ( ro c ) ∞ i ( nB − m )(ϕ − π / 2 )
′ ( ro , n ) =
p inc
4π cro
e ∑e
m = −∞
(15)
×{i sin θ J nB ′ − m ( k n rs sin θ ) Fr ( m )
nB − m
+ [cos θ Fa ( m ) − Ft ( m )] J nB − m ( k n rs sin θ )} S Fig.11 Surface acoustic pressure on the exterior model (BEP):
nBM rs Blade noise
Equation (15) was used to calculate the sound radiation of the
blade rotating dipole source. Fig.11 shows the surface acoustic pressure distribution on
Only the fundamental harmonic (BPF) was calculated. the exterior model of the blade noise at the BEP flow rate. It
MD-DBEM model was employed. The blade was divided into can be observed that the blade noise is radiated mainly from
10 portions in order to meet equation (14) better. The overall the outlet.
radiated sound field was then the integration of those radiated
by each portion. At a specific time step, the blade pressure
distributions are shown in Fig.9 (only the pressure side is CONCLUSION
plotted). Integration of the pressure on each portion at every This work was part of a series of studies aiming for
time step gave the time series of normal forces. After Fourier designing low noise fans and compressors. Our previous study
transform, the force spectra were obtained. Fig.10 shows the about the fan casing vibroacoustics showed that noise due to
force spectra of portion 2. The BPF component is not casing vibration was much smaller than the aerodynamic
noticeable, while the rotational frequency (48.3Hz) and its noise. This paper studied the aerodynamic tonal casing noise.
fourth harmonic are pronounced. With these force spectra, we Results showed that the casing noise contributed the overall
can use equation (15) to calculate the sound pressure radiated noise of this centrifugal fan significantly, and with the increase
by the blades. The results are shown in Table 2. One can see of the flow rate the radiated sound power rose drastically. The
the radiated sound powers calculated by the Lowson’s rotor dipole on the volute tongue surface was the most dominant
noise model are quite small compared to the casing noise. noise source of the fan. Action should be taken to reduce this
dipole source.
Table 2: Results of tonal blade noise Blade noise at the BPF calculated by Lowson’s rotor noise
Flow Rate BEP 1.382BEP 2.104BEP model was smaller than the casing noise, especially at large
Sound Power (mW) 0.348 0.234 0.282 flow rates. Direct time-domain solution to FW-H equation,
Sound Pressure (Pa) 0.340 0.197 0.275 such as using Farassat’s formulation 1A, will be studied in

8 Copyright © 2009 by ASME

order to make a comparison with Lowson’s model. And the
rotating dipole sources on the surfaces of shroud and hub can
be taken into account in that case.
This study shows that CFD combined with CAA can be
used to predict fan noise conveniently. Therefore, it can favor
the optimum design of fan performance and noise through
numerical ‘experiments’.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Dr. Doug Cook (Purdue
University) and Dr. David Lou (Nanyang Technological
University) for the valuable discussions and suggestions during
the study and preparation of the manuscript.
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