885

An integrated study of the design method for

small axial-flow fans, based on the airfoil theory
S-C Lin and M-L Tsai∗
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan,
Republic of China

The manuscript was received on 19 January 2010 and was accepted after revision for publication on 23 August 2010.
DOI: 10.1243/09544062JMES2231

Abstract: This research is aimed to establish an integrated design scheme through combining
the cascade theory and inverse design method for the small axial-flow fans. At first, a reliable
set of low-Reynolds-number aerodynamic characteristics for National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics airfoils is constructed to serve as the fan design database via the computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) calculation incorporated with a dependable turbulent model. Then, with the
inputs of design conditions and few geometric settings, this design program can generate a fan
configuration to meet with the desired performance requirement. Furthermore, by changing the
operating flowrate for this fan geometry, this design approach can also yield the axial velocity
and the pressure distributions for various operating points over the entire performance curve.
Consequently, this feature enables the design engineer to foresee the actual fan performance
delivered under different system resistances. Thereafter, a computer numerically controlled –
fabricated prototype and a three-dimensional numerical model are chosen to validate the design
prediction of fan performance via both test and CFD approaches. As a result, a slight deviation
among the designed, experimental, and numerical outcomes is observed throughout the P–Q
performance curve. In conclusion, this systematic and user-friendly inverse design program not
only provides the fan engineer’s design ability to meet with the performance requirement at the
on-design point, but also the predicting capability on the off-design characteristics.

Keywords: axial-flow fan, inverse design method, computational fluid dynamics, National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics airfoils

1 INTRODUCTION which has the advantages of sufficient flowrate, high

While the industrial technology develops along with
time, the computer’s efficiency, and power consump-
tion also keep improving continuously. In order to
maintain the stable status and avoid the overheat-
ing problem, the system’s cooling design becomes an
important and challenging task. Obviously, the cooling
fan plays the vital role in the thermal design. Also, cool-
ing fans were designed in diversified specifications
for meeting different demands of heat dissipation.
Among the notebook, desktop, and server computers,
the favourite cooling component is the axial-flow fan
∗ Corresponding author: Department of Mechanical Engineering,
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, 43, Sec. 4,
Keelung Road, Taipei, Taiwan 10672, Republic of China.
email: D9303303@mail.ntust.edu.tw
efficiency, and low noise.
In practical applications, the generated airflow rate,
pressure, noise, and efficiency for a cooling fan vary
under different system’s resistances which are influ-
enced by the operating environment. Thus, a well-
designed fan can properly produce enough pressure to
overcome the system’s resistance and remove the heat
out of the system efficiently and quietly under vari-
ous operating points. However, the good fan design is
based on the right choice of design parameters under a
specific operating environment. Therefore, that will be
one of the key technologies and the goals that thermal
engineers want to pursue about how to set up an effi-
cient method or a convenient program that can pick
up right parameters to complete an appropriate fan
design.
Speaking of the fan design method, there are two
major approaches which are the direct design and

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886
the inverse design. For the direct design scheme,
the preliminary fan configuration is designed, tested,
and analysed by a series of experiments and numer-
ical simulations. Referring to the computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) results of velocity field and pressure
distribution, this fan geometry is modified to meet
with the required performance. Those tests, analyses,
and modifications will be repeated until the expected
requirement is fulfilled. This design method is helpful
to see clearly the fan’s flow patterns and aerodynamic
performance; however, it takes too much time to mod-
ify the fan’s blade geometry since the modified strategy
is vague and depends on abundant practical expe-
riences to find out. As to the inverse design, it can
quickly identify the velocity and pressure distributions
by the operating flowrate and total pressure to design
the satisfactory fan shape. However, some important
issues on this method still need further studies, such
as how to set right pressure, velocity distribution, and
other relative design parameters.
With regard to the methodology studies of fan
design, Eck [1] had an extensive introduction about
the performance characteristics of various fan types.
Based on the fan’s geometric parameters, he took
advantage of the fluid dynamic theory to analyse the
aerodynamic performances of various fans. Eck also
proposed to study the fan performance through veloc-
ity triangles of the fan blades. This proposal turned
to set a solid foundation for the following fan design
researches.
In the 1980s, the related studies about the inverse fan
design had been developed. Goto [2] used the method
of inverse boundary and cascade design together with
NACA65 blade to design the axial-flow fan. Through
experiments, this research also investigated the time-
averaged flow pattern by measuring the blades’ veloc-
ity and pressure under the fan’s on-design situation.
Comparing the experiment and the design data, the
work discovered that the trend between the test and
the design results of axial velocity distribution was
in accordance. Except for the tip region of the blades,
there was an obvious deviation because of the leak-
age effect. The significant difference between the
experimental result and the design prediction of total
pressure distribution was caused by the experimental
measured point which was set on the blades’ upstream
and downstream with less consideration about the
effect of wake loss due to the viscosity. Meanwhile, the
experimental measured point was not in accordance
with the blades’ pressure distribution of the inverse
cascade method.
In 1996, Lewis [3] had more detailed introduc-
tions about turbomachine performance, Euler turbine
equation, two-dimensional (2D) cascade theory, and
vortex coefficient design. The vortex coefficient theory
had initially introduced the tangential velocity distri-
bution of the free vortex; however, after modifying
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S-C Lin and M-L Tsai
the tangential velocity under the consideration that
the longer radius of blade generates more work, the
corrected swirling coefficient can yield better perfor-
mance and is regarded as the product of the arbitrary
vortex design (AVD). According to the theory of AVD,
the modified tangential velocity can be used to cal-
culate the total pressure distribution which will be
the fan designers’ important reference. Furthermore,
Lewis [3] took advantage of those theories to write a
computer code for the design program which can find
the proper size of turbomachine through the inputs of
volume coefficient, head coefficient, and turbine stage
in order to calculate the velocity triangles. Finally, the
design method of a multi-stage axial turbine is estab-
lished by putting in more parameters, such as chord
length and setting angle, and stacking a series of 2D
airfoil sections to form the 3D impellers.
In 2007, Hong et al. [4] developed an inverse method
to design the axial-flow fan. They utilized the fan’s
flowrate and total pressure under the on-design oper-
ating situation to be the premier design conditions.
Later, they set up distributions of velocity and total
pressure and calculated the velocity triangles in order
to meet with the premier design conditions. Under the
former conditions, they used the NACA44 airfoils to
design the fan with proper blade shape. Afterwards,
to validate this design tool, an axial-flow fan was
designed and manufactured by the computer numeri-
cally controlled (CNC) machine to carry out the corre-
sponding experiments. Their study also conducted the
corresponding numerical simulation for comparison
with experimental measurement and design results.
Consequently, the design method developed by Hong
was proven to be reasonable and workable.
In 2008, Cruz et al. [5] designed five axial-flow
turbines with respect to the minimum pressure coef-
ficient, which was attained by the use of cascade
theory and potential theory. They worked out the
design parameters of those five turbines by the exper-
imental relationships of the head, flowrate, specific
diameter, and specific speed. They also deduced the
performances of those turbines after performing the
numerical analysis via the commercial software CFX-
TASC flow. On comparing the CFD results, they thus
identified the rotor design with optimal efficiency for
the design method. However, they did not directly
compare the design parameters with the numerical
analysis. They also did not carry out any experiment
to prove the reliability of the results between the
simulations and the designs.
From the above-mentioned researches, it was found
that the previous theories [1, 3] about fan designs
had been developed since a long time. However,
the theory about the inverse fan design still has no
systematic and reliable consequence until now. The
accuracy [2, 5] of any inverse design method is dif-
ficult to prove. Therefore, it is necessary to develop
 An integrated study of the design method for small axial-flow fans
the inverse design method integrated by numerical
simulations and experiments. If the fan’s performance
can be compared with the design parameters through
the numerical analysis and the experimental results,
the relative correlations between the design method
and the practical operation will be clearly understood.
Thus, it enhances the predictability and reliability of
the inverse design method.
In Hong’s investigation [4], he carried out the pre-
liminary comparison and discussion while integrating
the numerical analysis and the performance exper-
iment of the designed axial-flow fan. However, it is
possible to make a further step for improving and
extending the validity of his design method. For exam-
ple, the drag coefficients calculated by the numerical
analysis are apparently overestimated. Also, the avail-
able angle of attack (AOA) of airfoil database is only in
the range from 0◦ to 10◦ that will confine the designed
area of operational points. In the meantime, it will
exclude the possibility of inspecting the situations for
a designed fan under other operating points, which is
essential for engineering applications.
Consequently, the small axial-fan is thus becoming
the design target in this research. First, a reliable set
of low-Reynolds-number aerodynamic characteristics
for NACA airfoils is constructed to serve as the fan
design database via the CFD calculation incorporated
with a dependable turbulent model. Noticeably, the
range of AOA is enlarged considerably up to 20◦ for
appropriately evaluating the fan designs under various
operating conditions. Then, with the inputs of design
conditions and few geometrical settings, this design
program can generate a fan configuration to meet with
the desired performance requirement.
Furthermore, by changing the operating flowrate for
this fan geometry, this design approach can also yield
the detailed parameter distribution over the entire per-
formance curve. Thereafter, a CNC-fabricated proto-
type and a 3D numerical model are chosen to validate
the performance prediction via both experimental and
numerical means. In conclusion, this systematic and
user-friendly inverse design program not only pro-
vides the fan engineer’s design ability to meet with the
performance requirement at the on-design point, but
also the predicting capability on the fan output under
the off-design conditions.
2 DESIGN PROGRAM FOR AXIAL FLOW FAN
It is well known that the flow pattern between blades
has significant influence on the fan performance,
and the blade configuration directly affects the corre-
sponding flow field inside a fan. Thus, when designing
a fan, it is necessary and critical to investigate the
interaction between flow and blade thoroughly. In a
practical fan design, the blade configuration is usually
formed by stacking several 2D airfoil sections along
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887
the radial direction, and so the complicated 3D flow
pattern inside an axial-flow fan can be simplified and
replaced by the combination of flow fields associated
with a series of 2D cascade planes at different radii.
Therefore, the cascade theory can herein be utilized
to analyse and evaluate the fan performance, such as
static pressure and volume flowrate, via some assump-
tions based on fluid dynamics concepts. The above
procedure is denoted as the direct design method.
On the contrary, if the flowrate and static pressure
were assigned first as the inverse design procedure
proposed in this research, the corresponding velocity,
pressure distributions, and fan performance can be
evaluated via the cascade theory. Moreover, with the
high-lift airfoils selected from the reliable database,
one can decide the appropriate size and setting angle
of rotor blades, which can generate the required air-
flow rate and pressure gain. Following this proposed
inverse design scheme, the complete configuration
of a fan impeller can be constructed systematically.
The following subsections illustrate the cascade the-
ory, the inverse design method, and a design example
for demonstration.
2.1 Cascade theory
Actually, an operating fan induces the complex 3D flow
patterns. To simplify this complicated flow analysis for
fulfilling the feasibility of the inverse design scheme,
this work considers the fan blades as a combination
of several 2D blade sections and discusses the inter-
action between the fluid and the moving cascade on
each blade section. As shown in Fig. 1(a), the horizon-
tal force caused by the fluid to the blade cascade can
be expressed as
Fx = ρbsVm (W1u − W2u ) = ρbsVm Vu (1)
and the blade lift force is given by
1
FL = 2
ρW∞ CL bc (2)
2
For a cascade moving with a peripheral velocity
u, the power exerted on the fluid by the cascade is
Pin = Fx u. By substituting equation (1) into the power
calculation, the power exerted by the cascade is
Pin = ρbsVm Vu u (3)
Also, this power exerted by the cascade is identical
to the energy required for raising the mass flow Ṁ by a
height like
Pin = Ṁ gH = ρbsVm gH (4)
where H is the total head. Thus, the expression for
total head can be attained by equating equations
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888 S-C Lin and M-L Tsai

DVu

W1 W∞ W2 V1 V∞ V2 Vm

b1 b∞ b2 a1 a a2
V2u
V∞u
V1u
W2u
W u
W1u
(a) (b)

Fig. 1 Velocity triangles and cascade geometry: (a) velocity triangles and (b) cascade geometry

(3) and (4) expression of total pressure can be written as

Pin = ρbsVm Vu u = ρbsVm gH    

c 1 sin(β∞ + ξ ) u
Pt = CL 2
ρW∞ (10)
Vu u s 2 cos ξ Vm
H=
g
From the above equations and cascade theory, the
(5)
relation between the velocity triangle and the total
Furthermore, the total pressure can be written as head can be identified via the process of calculating
the cascade power. In this work, equation (10) is used
Pt = ρgH = ρuVu (6) to estimate the fan total head. The next subsection will
introduce the proposed design procedure in detail.
As the airflow passes through blade surfaces, the
viscosity-induced friction force does affect the blade
lift force. Hence, taking the friction effect into account 2.2 Inverse design program
will make the design result more precise. As illustrated
in Fig. 1(b), the direction of friction force is identical To generate an axial-flow fan design efficiently, this
to that of the average velocity, and this force leads to work adopts the aforementioned cascade method to
the lower energy transfer from the cascade to the fluid divide the fan rotor into several 2D blade sections. The
and the cascade total head. By considering the fric- 2D flow-field analysis can therefore be performed by
tion force, the horizontal force exerted on blades is the combination of these 2D blade cascades. Figure 2
expressed as illustrates the design flow chart, which comprises
design condition inputs, velocity and head distri-
Fx = FR sin(β∞ + ξ ) (7) bution settings, calculation of velocity triangle, and
selection of airfoil types. The detailed description of
where ξ is the glide angle and can be represented as each design procedure is given in below.
   
FD CD
ξ = tan−1 = tan−1 (8) 2.2.1 Input design condition
FL CL
By substituting equation (1) into equation (7), the At the beginning of the design scheme, the operat-
relation between velocity and lift force can be writ- ing condition and appropriate fan size are determined
ten as first. By inputting the operating rotational speed, air-
FL flow rate, and total head, the theoretical flowrate and
ρbsVm Vu = sin(β∞ + ξ ) (9) head can be obtained via the expressions of the vol-
cos ξ
umetric and hydraulic efficiencies. The volumetric
Thereafter, substituting the relation of FL and Vu and hydraulic efficiencies indicate ratios of the actual
(equations (2) and (6)) into the above equation, the flowrate through the rotor to the total inlet airflow

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 An integrated study of the design method for small axial-flow fans 889

Start

Input design condition

Decide hub size

Assign the axial velocity

distribution

Assign the head

distribution

Calculate velocity
triangles

Select appropriate airfoil

Choose the applicable

No chord-pitch ratio

Check if the generated

head agrees with the
assigned distribution
Yes

Design complete

Fig. 3 Proper design range for axial-flow fans: (a) δ − σ

Fig. 2 Flow chart of the design procedure
diagram and (b) ϕ − ψ diagram

identified to decide the proper rotor diameter. Con-

and actual head rise to that of the no-loss condition sequently, by means of these given dimensionless
[1], respectively. Both of these efficiencies are mainly coefficients in Fig. 3, the design range of rotor diame-
influenced by the losses of tip clearance and secondary ter can be determined in a simple and direct manner.
flow motions. For a small axial-flow fan with 1–2 mm Expressions of the volume coefficient ϕ, pressure coef-
tip clearance operating at the on-design condition, it ficient ψ, speed coefficient σ , and diameter coefficient
is common to have the volumetric efficiency over 90 δ are given below
per cent and hydraulic efficiency between 80 per cent
and 90 per cent. Accordingly, the theoretical head and 1
ϕ=
flowrate can be obtained through these characteristics σ · δ3

to calculate the speed coefficient. 1 2
Qth
Referring to the optimum speed and diameter coef- ψ = 2 2 σ = 2π1/2 · n 4

ficients for axial-flow fans, the relation between them
was plotted through the extensive investigation on the
fan textbook [1], as illustrated in Fig. 3. It presents that
the appropriate design ranges for axial-flow fans vary
from 0.13 to 6 for the speed coefficient and from 1 to 9
for the diameter coefficient, respectively.
With a specified speed coefficient σ drawn as the
horizontal bold line in Fig. 3(a), the correspond-
ing range of diameter coefficient δ can be decided
straightforwardly.With this diameter coefficient range,
it follows that the rotor diameter can be selected prop-
erly and easily. Moreover, another systematic graph
with those relations of diameter, speed, volume, and
pressure coefficients is plotted in Fig. 3(b), where the
grey region marks the proper design range for axial-
flow fans. When the speed coefficient is specified as
these bold slanted lines within this design region, the
corresponding range for diameter coefficient can be
σ ·δ (2gHth )3

1 2gHth · π2
δ = Drotor 4 2
2 Qth
(11)
where n, Drotor , Qth , and Hth represent fan speed, rotor
diameter, theoretical flowrate, and head, respectively.
For demonstration, the theoretical speed coefficient
of an axial-flow fan (120 × 120 × 38 mm) with 60 cfm
flowrate and 2.7 mm-Aq total pressure head operating
at 2000 r/min is calculated to be 1.05. The correspond-
ing diameter coefficient ranges from 1.4 to 1.9 as
indicated in Fig. 3(a). It follows that rotor diameter
should be picked within the range of 100–139 mm. As
a result, referring to the commonly used fan spec-
ification in desktop computers, a 113 mm-diameter
axial-flow rotor with 1 mm tip clearance is selected and
pre-designed here.

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890
2.2.2 Assign the axial velocity distribution
When the fan diameter is specified, the complete
velocity and head distributions at the fan inlet and out-
let can be further assigned. This study uses the relation
between volumetric flow coefficient and peripheral
velocity to yield the axial velocity distribution. Next,
the velocity distribution can be integrated over the
cross-section to calculate the total flowrate, which can
be used to check the fulfilment of volumetric flowrate.
For that reason, the velocity distribution will be mod-
ified repeatedly until the total flowrate is approximate
to the theoretical value.
2.2.3 Assign head distribution
In the previous investigations of fan designs [6–8], the
concept of free vortex design (FVD) was widely used to
design the velocity inside axial-flow fans and turbines,
which holds the work generation by fan rotor constant
with radius. However, it does not appropriately con-
form to the real flow physics of increasing blades work
proportional to the hub radius. Therefore, this study
utilizes the designed head of FVD as the initial value
for further modifying the constant head distribution
to a proportionally increasing one with radius. The
FVD-designed tangential velocity is defined as
gHth
Vu−FVD (r) =
u(r)
and the swirling coefficient εFVD is given by
Vu−FVD (r)
εFVD (r) =
Vm (r)
By considering that the blades work increases pro-
portionally with hub radius, the concept of AVD is
introduced to correct the swirling coefficient. The rela-
tion between the tangential velocity and axial velocity
is expressed as
Vu−AVD (r) = εAVD (r) · Vm (r)
In addition, the head distribution can be calculated
by the Euler equation
u(r) · Vu−AVD (r)
HAVD (r) =
g
As the head distribution is assigned, the hypotheti-
cal total head is calculated by averaging the integration
of the head distribution over the cross area. Also, if
needed, the correction procedure of the swirling coef-
ficient will be iterated until the hypothetical total head
is roughly equivalent to the theoretical value.
2.2.4 Calculate velocity triangles
The tangential velocity distribution is also determined
when the axial velocity and total head distribution
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S-C Lin and M-L Tsai
are specified. Thereafter, the relative inlet velocity W1 ,
outlet velocity W2 , and average velocity W∞ = (W1 +
W2 )/2 are then calculated through the velocity trian-
gle relations. In addition, one can calculate the relative
inlet (β1 ), outlet (β2 ), and average angles (β∞ ), which is
the average of β1 and β2 .
2.2.5 Select appropriate blade sections
After determining the corresponding parameters of
velocity triangles, the next step in this design program
is selecting proper airfoils to construct the rotor blade
for meeting the designed head demand. The proce-
dure for choosing is listed in Fig. 2. At first, this study
uses the relative outlet blade angle (β2 ) as the blade
setting angle on the hub, and picks the difference
between the setting angle and relative average blade
angle (β∞ ) as the AOA (Ia ). While the blade angles are
determined, the maximum chord–pitch ratio Rcp,max
can be calculated through the following relation
cmax λ(s/cos β2 ) λ
Rcp,max = = = (16)
s s cos β2
where λ denotes the manufacturing safety factor,
which its default value is set at 0.9 to ensure the man-
ufacturing feasibility of fan rotor [4]. In this design
program, the blade number is pre-assigned and con-
strained by this factor. Thus, the chord length is
(12)
determined by selecting the proper chord–pitch ratio,
and the Reynolds number is computed according to
the relative average velocity W∞ . Besides, this program
uses blade setting angle and chord length to calculate
(13) the blade height hblade which should not exceed the
pre-assigned hub height hhub .
With the above information, the authors are ready to
find the appropriate airfoil from the reliable database.
The selecting criterion is whether the airfoil can gen-
erate sufficient total head, which is decided by the
corresponding lift and drag coefficients under these
calculated Reynolds numbers and AOAs.
(14) Through the aforesaid steps, the design program
can yield a hub-blade geometry which satisfies the
performance requirement of the fan. The relation of
fan design parameters are summarized in Table 1.
By appropriately assigning pre-designed parameters
(15) listed in Table 1, this program can generate the corre-
sponding design parameters step by step. Note that, as
indicated in Fig. 2, each velocity distribution results in
Table 1 Fan design parameters
Design parameters
Design stage Pre-designed Program generated
1 Hth , Qth , N Drotor
2 Dhub H (r), Vm (r), Vu (r)
3 λ Rcp,max
4 hhub , nblade c, hblade
 An integrated study of the design method for small axial-flow fans 891

Table 2 Design parameters at various local radii

Section Radius Axial velocity Head Chord length Setting angle
number (mm) (m/s) (mm-Aq) (mm) (degree) Airfoil type

1 23.0 2.1 1.2 18.6 39.9 4420

2 26.7 2.5 1.7 21.2 39.7 4418
3 30.4 2.9 2.1 23.6 39.5 4416
4 34.2 3.1 2.5 26.2 39.3 4414
5 37.9 3.4 2.9 28.9 38.9 4412
6 41.6 3.7 3.7 31.6 38.6 4410
7 45.3 4.1 4.6 34.2 38.2 4408
8 49.1 4.4 5.0 36.6 37.7 4406
9 52.8 4.8 5.8 39.1 37.0 4406
10 56.5 5.1 6.2 41.6 36.0 4406

corresponding velocity triangle and blade angle which

influence the choices of blade number and chord–
pitch ratio. Therefore, blade section with a particular
setting angle and pitch are properly selected at each
radial location to form a 3D rotor blade for meeting
with the assigned head distribution. Since the inverse
design procedure is quite tedious and complicated,
this work also accomplishes a user-friendly design
program byVisual Basic. Consequently, the fan design-
ers can easily execute these procedures to generate a
fan design for meeting the demand in a reliable and
systematic manner. Fig. 4 CAD model of the design result

2.3 Design example

As mentioned above, the design program requires
inputs of the operating condition at the beginning of
the design procedure. These inputs include the rota-
tional speed, flowrate, and total pressure. By checking
the performance of commercial fan products, the
selected design subject for this work is a 120 mm-
diameter axial-flow fan with a 2000 r/min rotational
speed, 60 cfm airflow rate, and 1 mm-Aq static pres-
sure at the on-design condition. Note that this fan size
is commonly used in the cooling system for a PC server.
In the design procedure, a hypothetical total head
is initially assumed to calculate the corresponding
static pressure. Then, the total head is modified repeat-
edly until the estimated static pressure approaches
to the designed value. After executing this itera-
tion process in the design program, a resultant total
pressure of 2.7 mm-Aq is evaluated at the on-design
point of 60 cfm and 2000 r/min. The complete design
results, such as axial velocity, head, airfoil type, chord
length, and setting angle are listed in Table 2, and the
generated hub-blade configuration is shown in Fig. 4.
Moreover, to investigate the fan performance under Fig. 5 Procedure for evaluating different operating
different system resistances, this work changes the points of the designed fan
flowrate to those of other operating points and modi-
fies the total head repeatedly to yield the correspond-
ing axial velocity and head distributions for the same at each operating point via this design procedure.
fan. Therefore, the fan designer can foresee the flow- Figure 5 illustrates the evaluating procedure step by
field information (velocity and head distributions) step.

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892
Fig. 6 Experimental set-up: (a) fan mockup and (b) sketch of AMCA test chamber
3 EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP AND NUMERICAL
APPROACH
In this study, a prototype of a designed fan (Fig. 6(a))
is fabricated using a CNC machine to execute the per-
formance test for validating the designed outcomes.
Besides, this investigation establishes a numerical
model to carry out a comprehensive CFD analysis
on the designed fan. As a result, a good agreement
between numerical result and experimental data can
not only verify the design program, but also reveal
the physical phenomenon and detailed flow patterns
inside the fan. The measurement apparatus, numer-
ical approach, and result comparison are illustrated
and discussed in the following subsections.
3.1 Experimental measurement
This work adopts the well-accepted AMCA 210-99 [9]
fan test code to execute the performance test of the
prototype fan. Figure 6(b) schematically plots the out-
let chamber and its instruments. The fan discharge
is mounted on the inlet of AMCA test chamber to
simulate free-inlet and flowrate-controlled condition.
The test set-up includes the chamber, flow setting
means, multiple nozzles, throttling devices, and auxil-
iary fans. With regard to measuring the data, pressure,
rotating speed, and temperature are recorded via a
pressure transducer, non-contact photo tachometer,
and thermometer, respectively. Flow settling means
are installed inside the chamber to provide proper flow
patterns for measurement. Thus, the measuring plane
before and after the multiple nozzles can be treated as
a substantially uniform flow and used to determine the
volumetric flowrate. Also, each operating point of the
fan is controlled by a throttling device and an auxiliary
fan at the end of the test chamber.
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S-C Lin and M-L Tsai
The fan performance is represented by its volumet-
ric flowrate, static pressure, and total efficiency at a
particular rotation speed. These parameters are the
primary measuring variables. The total efficiency ηt
can be determined by
Pt × Q
ηt = (17)
Fan power input
where Pt is the total pressure, and Q is the volumetric
flowrate.
Regarding the experimental uncertainties analysis,
the fan speed is measured by a non-contact photo
tachometer, which is accurate to 0.05 per cent with a
resolution of 1 r/min. The measurement uncertainties
of discharge flowrate and static pressure are mainly
affected by the accuracy and calibration of the pres-
sure transducer. With full ranges below 56 mmH2 O,
the accuracy of this instrument was estimated to be
within 0.25 per cent full scale. This experiment also
uses a pressure calibration system to calibrate this
ultra-low-range pressure transducer with a resolution
of 0.05 mmH2 O and an accuracy of 0.5 per cent of the
readings. Thus, the uncertainty of the performance
measurement is estimated to be around 2.0 per cent.
3.2 Numerical approach
The work uses the commercial CFD software Fluent
[10] to perform the numerical simulations for estab-
lishing an appropriate database of airfoil, which is
essential in analysing the flow pattern through blades.
As stated in previous section, it is required to construct
a reliable database for the airfoil in the low-Reynolds-
number flow. The 3D viscous CFD simulation on the
airfoil provides sufficient messages to calculate the
forces exerted on the airfoil surface within the proper
range of Reynolds number. The second part of this CFD
 An integrated study of the design method for small axial-flow fans 893

(a) 1 lift coefficients are comparatively higher than experi-

mental measurements at the stalled AOA (8–12◦ ) with
0.8 an acceptable 8 per cent difference. The predicted
drag coefficients are obviously higher than the exper-
0.6
imental results. However, the calculated results agree
CL

0.4 reasonably to the experimental measurements on the

whole. Accordingly, instead of experiments, this work
Exp.
0.2 adopts the numerical approach to construct the aero-
Num. dynamic database of NACA 44 airfoils at various AOAs
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 (0–20◦ ) and Reynolds numbers (104 –105 ).
AOA (deg.)
(b) 0.1 3.2.2 3D simulation for axial-flow fan
Exp.
0.08
Regarding the numerical analysis for the axial-flow fan,
Num.
this research establishes a 3D grid system to simulate
0.06 the flow field inside the fan. To ensure that the numer-
CD

ical simulated flow patterns in accordance with the

0.04
0.02
0 and outlet region, as plotted in Fig. 8(a). Since the
0 2 4 6
AOA (deg.)
Fig. 7 Lift and drag coefficients at different AOAs of
NACA 0012 airfoil: (a) lift coefficient and (b) drag
coefficient
analysis is to execute the numerical simulation and
analyse the designed fan characteristics running at
various operating points. The following describes the
grid generation, boundary conditions, and turbulence
model used in the numerical approach.
3.2.1 3D simulation for NACA 44 airfoil
In the numerical approach, this work employs the
detached eddy simulation model [11] to execute the
transient analysis for calculating the airfoil’s drag and
lift coefficients. To verify the numerical calculated
results, the lift and drag coefficients of NACA 0012
airfoil at Re = 1.7 × 105 are numerically calculated
and compared with the corresponding experimental
results [12, 13]. As shown in Fig. 7, the CFD-predicted
actual fan operation, a refined grid arrangement of
flow passages is of great importance. Therefore, this
work divides the grid system into inlet region, rotor,
8 10 physical phenomenon becomes very complex for the
flow entering the fan rotor, most of the grid points are
placed in this rotor region for obtaining the detailed
information of the flow field (Fig. 8(b)); total grid
number of this numerical model is 1.36 millions.
As stated previously, Fluent is selected to solve
the incompressible 3D Navier–Stokes equation by
using an unstructured finite-volume method and
pressure–velocity coupling scheme of the SIMPLE
algorithm with the standard k − ε turbulence model.
This numerical model sets the no-slip boundary con-
dition on the solid surfaces of the fan, and deals with
the rotating flow in turbomachine via the moving refer-
ence frame model in the CFD codes. The mass flowrate
of each operating point at the outlet boundary surface
is set for calculating the corresponding pressure and
analysing the flow field inside the fan.
3.3 Result comparison and discussion
As illustrated in Fig. 9, the experimental P–Q curve
agrees well to the numerical outcome. The numeri-
cal deviations on maximum volumetric flowrate and

Inlet region Blade leading edge

Blade
Fan

Outlet region
Blade trailing edge

(a) (b)

Fig. 8 Grid distributions of an axial-flow fan: (a) overall mesh and (b) rotor mesh

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894 S-C Lin and M-L Tsai

4 Table 3 Designed total pressure heads

Static Pressure (mm-Aq)

Experimental Data
Numerical Data CFD calculation Design value
3
Operating point (mm-Aq) (mm-Aq)
2 A 2.6 2.5
B 2.7 2.7
1 C 1.6 2.1

0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Airflow Rate (CFM) 4 CONCLUDING REMARKS

Fig. 9 The performance comparison between experi- In this study, the inverse design program proposed
mental and numerical results for the axial-flow by Hong et al. [4] has been improved and extended
fan (2000 r/min) significantly via adding a reliable airfoil database,
and applied to predict the fan’s off-design perfor-
mance. For verification and demonstration purpose,
4 80 this work designed a small axial-flow fan according
P-Q Data
Static Pressure (mm-Aq)

70 to the specified on-design condition by using the

Total Efficiency (%)

3 60
2 40
A C
1
0 0
0 20 40
Airflow Rate (CFM)
Fig. 10 The calculated performance and efficiency of
the axial-flow fan (2000 r/min)
static pressure are roughly 7 per cent and 13 per cent,
lower than the measuring data. This discrepancy
results as the numerical calculation uses the semiem-
pirical turbulent model which produces an inevitable
error in analysing the detailed flow field inside the
axial-flow fan.
For demonstration purpose, three different operat-
ing points are selected to discuss the influences of
various system resistances on the fan performance.
Figure 10 shows that these points are denoted as point
A (36 cfm), point B (60 cfm), and point C (84 cfm)
to represent three typical cases of high, medium,
and low system resistances, respectively. First, this
work chooses point B as the design condition, and
accordingly uses the design program to generate the
resultant axial velocity component, pressure distribu-
tions, and geometrical dimensions for the designed
fan. Then, through setting another flowrate, the cor-
responding distributions on the axial velocity and
pressure head can be calculated for the designed fan
operating at off-design conditions, such as points A
and C. Table 3 lists the designed and numerical total
pressure heads. Clearly, even in the design stage, this
design program can not only predict the on-design
fan performance, but also offer the off-design perfor-
mance systematically. This capability is essential for
the fan designer to evaluate their design outcomes in
an overall viewpoint.
Total Efficiency
computer software developed for this design scheme.
50
B Furthermore, to validate the design prediction of fan
performance, a CNC-fabricated prototype and a 3D
30
numerical model are chosen to perform the exper-
20
10
imental and CFD analysis, respectively. As a result,
good qualitative agreements on these parameters are
60 80 100 indicated in this research. In conclusion, this system-
atic and user-friendly inverse design program provides
the fan engineer’s design ability to meet with the per-
formance requirement under the on-design and the
off-design operation points. Consequently, this inte-
grated design scheme, mock-up fabrication, experi-
mental test, and CFD approach established here can
be used as an important reference for fan designers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank the National Science
Council for the financial support of this research under
contract no. NSC 97-2622-E-011-009-CC2.
© Authors 2011
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m axial component
max maximum
APPENDIX u tangential direction
x horizontal direction
Notation ∞ mean direction
1 inlet
b spanwise length (m) 2 outlet
c chord length (m)
CD drag coefficient Acronyms
CL lift coefficient
Dhub hub diameter (m) Aq aqueous
Drotor rotor diameter (m) AOA angle of attack
F force (N) AVD arbitrary vortex design
FL lift force (N) cfm cubic feet per minute
FR resultant force (N) CFD computational fluid dynamics
g gravity (m/s2 ) CNC computer numerically controlled
hblade blade height (m) DES detached eddy simulation
hhub hub height (m) FVD free vortex design
H total head (m) MRF moving reference frame
Hth theoretical total head (m) NACA National Advisory Committee for
Ia angle of attack (degree) Aeronautics
Ṁ mass flowrate (kg/s) P–Q pressure and airflow rate
n fan rotational speed (revolutions per rpm revolution per minute
second) Re Reynolds number
nblade blade number SIMPLE Semi-implicit method for
Pin input power (W) pressure-linked equations
Pt total pressure (Pa) 2D two-dimensional
Qth theoretical volume flowrate (m3 /s) 3D three-dimensional

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