NUMERICAL STUDY OF TURBULENT FLOWS THROUGH A CIRCULAR DUCT WITH A ROTATING FAN

A fan is an important part for air circulation in household appliances and automobiles. In this research an attempt has been made to extract the flow information using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique. The numerical results were found for a case with a stationary fan inside the duct and the data obtained were in good agreement with the experiment. The evolution of velocity profiles at various axial locations for different flow conditions were also studied in this research. The numerical method was then extended to the cases with a rotating fan. A proof-of-concept run was also successfully carried out to showe the relationship between air flow rate in the duct and the corresponding pressure rise.