Proceedings of the 37th National & 4th International Conference on Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Power Proceedings of the

37th National & 4th International Conference on Fluid Mechanics Fluid Power December 16-18, 2010, IIT Madras, and Chennai, India.
December 16-18, 2010, IIT Madras, Chennai, India

FMFP10 - TM - 03
FMFP2010594

EXPERIMENTAL AND CFD MODEL FOR DESIGN OF AN AUTOMOTIVE CENTRIFUGAL COOLING FAN
O.P.Singh, Manager, R&D, TVS Motor Company, Hosur, India. omprakash.singh@tvsmotor.co.in T. Sreenivasulu, Member, R&D, TVS Motor Company, Hosur, India t.sreenivasulu@tvsmotor.co.in

Rakesh Khilwani Student, Dept of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras, India rakesh.khilwani@gmail.com

M Kannan, General Manager, R&D, TVS Motor Company, Hosur, India m.kannan@tvsmotor.co.in

ABSTRACT: Efficient performance of automotive centrifugal cooling fan depends on many geometrical parameters like number of blades, its thickness, inlet angle, outlet angle, and blade diameter ratio. To examine the effect of these parameters experimentally, it requires large number of prototypes to be made. It is a time consuming process. It this paper, we report the systematic procedure to design a simple experimental setup to measure the fan performance. A 3D CFD model was developed and validated with the results obtained from the experiments. The results suggest that irrespective of fan design, fan performance tends to become equal at high system resistance. Keywords: Centrifugal fan, Experiments, CFD, engine cooling 1. INTRODUCTION Centrifugal fans are widely for cooling engines in automotive industry. With increasing demands of high performance engines, cooling requirements have also increase proportionately to keep the engine metal temperatures within the desirable limits. Using an optimized fan for engine heat dissipation is critical to the overall engine performance. The fan derives its energy from the power generated by the engine. The fan has

to overcome high system resistances when used in the vehicle level testing. In automotive industry, one direct way to test the fan performance for engine temperature reduction is to directly mount the fan on the engine cooling system (Kiura 2005, Coggiola, 1998). Engine is then run at desired speed for a specific time. Temperatures of various engine components are measured till the steady state is reached (Vishal et al. 2008, Manish et al. 2005). However, this method has various disadvantages. First, since the system resistance is high, fan with various design configurations cannot be evaluated properly. Second, it is a time consuming process. Third, it requires the whole engine cooling system to be in place. Hence, under such conditions, effect of different fan parameters like number of blades, diameter ratio, and outlet angles etc. cannot be evaluated properly. Fourth, variability in engine testing conditions would predict different temperatures at different times. Fifth, fan design as per drawing specifications and fan design that is used in testing are different. Reason being that screws and washers are used to mount the fan on engine. Few blades of fan are cute to accommodate these mounting accessories. However, blades are uniform as per design specification. Cut blades effects fan performance when compared to uniform blades. In the experimental setup described

here, blades remain uniform due to the innovative mounting system (a patent has been filed). Furthermore, the number of fan blades needed for a given engine cooling system cannot be determined theoretically and it can be found only experimentally (Bruno, 1962). Hence, there is a need for a simple experimental setup with minimum system resistance, where automotive centrifugal fans can be tested. This setup will also help automotive engineers in evaluating the competitors fan design using numerical and experimental techniques (Sreenivasulu et.al, 2009). In this paper we present an experimental setup and a CFD model to study a centrifugal fan. Effect of various fan parameters is investigated at various operating conditions. 2. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Volute and casing design The centrifugal fan is surrounding by a volute, which along with the sidewalls form a part of the casing. The volute along with cowling used in the vehicle has a very complex design owing to the vehicle and engine layout (Vishal et al 2008). Hence, it is very difficult to test the fan in the actual engine cooling system. Therefore, it is required to build a new casing, which is much simpler in design and must be flexible to test different fans in the same casing. Moreover it must be flexible enough to be used on any machine i.e. it can be mounted on any test rig. The design of casing depends upon the volute profile. Subsequently the profile of the volute is dependent on the fan design i.e. different fans have different volute profile or, different fans require different casing. The volute profile of a fan mainly depends upon its outlet diameter and angle of absolute velocity with the peripheral direction (Bruno, 1962). The profile of volute is given by,
ln c r = 0 m = tan 0 r0 c 0u

mm in this case. 0 is the angle that absolute velocity vector makes with the peripheral direction. Rearranging this equation we get,
r = r0e tan 0

(2)

Outlet radius is kept same for all fan design. However, outlet angle varies with fan design. Experiments are conducted for the outlet angle that varies from 34 to 54. We have taken an average outlet angle of 30.
tan30 = 0.577

(3) (4)

r = 66e0.577

Figure 1. Profile of volute used

using this we get a profile of volute as shown in Fig.1. The height of the fan and the shape of shaft used determine the thickness of the volute. For better performance of fan and to reduce losses due to re-circulation, the casing must be kept as close as possible to the fan blades.
(a)

(b)

(1) the Fig. 2(a) shows the casing designed for fan testing. It has the following

Here r denotes the radius of the volute at an angle , r0 is the outlet radius that is equal to 66

Figure 2. (a) Experimental setup (b) mounting plate for fan and fan with its mountings

specifications: Thickness of sheet metal = 2 mm. On the back wall where bearing is required to be placed in the fan shaft, we have provided a thickness of 4 mm for better stability. With volute profile r = 66e0.577 , minimum distance between fan and volute = 3.5 mm was obtained. This clearance provides safely to the system at higher speeds. Sometimes due to excessive vibration at high rpm the fan may rub with the casing at very high velocity. This may cause damage to the fan, test rig, shaft and casing. Since the prototypes for the fan was made of up brittle material there is high chances that the material may break. Clearance between the casing and the fan from the sidewall = 7mm. This clearance is given in order to accommodate the shaft required to transmit the drive from the fiction test rig to the fan. This shaft design is different from what is normally used for fan mountings. Length of the outlet square duct = 250mm. A square duct is made at the outlet of the fan of constant area. Sufficient length is given so that the flow at the outlet is allowed to develop uniformly. Length of the inlet duct = 50mm. A bell shaped inlet duct is provided in order to reduce losses at the entry of the fan. Bell mount nose radius = 2mm. Width of casing = 49 mm. At the inlet of the outlet square duct, a very small nose radius was provided to make a transition from volute profile to duct. This diameter must be as small as possible, because having large radius causes formation of large stagnation zone causing flow to re-circulate in that area. Hence, small nose is kept to reduce these losses. A ball bearing was used to mount the fan shaft on the casing. Ball bearing specification is N6000. The ball bearing was press fit into the casing on the back wall. The shaft that transmits drive has one end fixed to the test rig coupling and the bearing supports the other end in order to prevent the bending of the shaft. Two plates are bolted on each side of the casing. The heights of the plates are such that the axis of fan and friction rig coincides.

This is very critical for accurately measuring the power consumed by the fan. The plate is bolted to the friction rig test bed. This gives us very rigid supports for the casing even at high rpm when the vibrations in the system are very high. The present test setup is flexible in following aspects: The L shape plate used for mounting is not welded to the casing. Instead three screws bolt it on each side. Hence this enables us to keep a new mounting even without changing the casing. This setup doesnt require any heavy components used in the vehicle cooling system. Fans of any size having similar parameters can be tested in this setup by scaling it either up or down and using fan laws. It is very small in size and compact, hence it is easy to handle and operate. It takes very less time to make the experimental setup than what it takes using the whole engine cooling system. Therefore, this experimental setup can be extensively used for fan testing over a wide range of fan designs. 2.2. Shaft and fan design The design of shaft and fan is shown in Fig. 2(b). The end of the shaft, which connects to the coupling, is made smaller in diameter compared to the shaft portion, which accommodates ball bearing to stability reasons. Three protrusions are provided on the shaft, which accommodates the fan. This restricts the fan from the rotational motion. The longest part of the shaft couples goes inside the fan and screwed at the end. This restricts the lateral motion of the fan. The design of the fan and shaft is that fan blades are not affected. In engine assembly, this shaft is equivalent to the crankshaft on which fan is mounted. Following are the dimensions of the shaft: shaft length that goes into the friction rig = 50 mm, diameter at the bearing = 10 mm, length= 100 mm, shaft diameter at the fan = 6 mm and length= 150 mm, length of threaded portion of the shaft = 20 mm. Pitch circle diameter of the protrusions = 60 mm, diameter of protrusions = 7.9 mm, length = 8 mm. Hole diameter of the fan that accommodates protrusion: 8.1 mm.

2.3. Measurement method Fig. 3 shows the experimental setup mounted on the low friction test rig. Different equipment used to measure the flow rates and pressure is shown in the Fig 3. The rpm of the test rig can be varied from 0 to 8,500. During the first test at high rpm of about 6000 the fan blade was observed to have developed cracks at the root. Hence, due to system stability concerns fan data was measured up to 5000 rpm only. An emergency button was provided on the test rig to stop the machine during any faulty operation. An LCD display on top of the test rig displays the torque values. The least count of rpm measuring instrument was 1 rpm and that of friction test rig was 0.001 Nm for torque measurement. The maximum possible torques that could be measured is 0.1 Nm and maximum misalignment of the shaft from the axis can be 0.1 mm. The design of the casing, shaft fan are such that these two limits are not exceeded.

section. Moment generated by the fan is indication power consumption by the fan. Moment is measure in the following way. The friction rig was run at various increasing rpm with fan in the casing. Moment was measured at specific rpm. Moment was measured again at the same specified rpm while decreasing the rpm. This establishes the repeatability of the measured data. Now, the fan is removed from the setup and same measurement method was followed. The difference between the two measurements (with fan and without fan) at a particular rpm gives the moment of the fan. In CFD simulation, moment is calculated from the contribution from the pressure and shear forces acting on the fan surfaces. Flow data are nondimensionalized as described in the definitions (Xiaomin et al. 2008). 3. NUMERICAL MODEL 3.1 Theoretical background: In this section we briefly describe the moving reference frame along the conservation equation that are solved numerically to obtain the flow field. The geometrical model is same as described earlier in the experimental setup. For incompressible flow the governing continuity and momentum equations can be written as follows:
u i =0 x i

(5)
u i u j + x x i j

u i u j u i p + = + t x j x i x j

(6)

Fig. 3. Developed experimental setup for fan testing. The numbers in the figure denotes: (1) volute casing, (2) fan (3) tube connected from volute outlet to the U-tube manometer, (4) low friction torque measurement machine (5) RPM control switch, (6) torque value displayer unit (7) optical sensor to measure rpm (8) digital meter for rpm display. Velocity at the outlet of the duct was measured with a vane type wind velocity meter. The meter gives average velocity at the cross-

where is the density, is the dynamic viscosity, u(u,v,w) is the velocity in x,y and z direction, p is the pressure. Turbulence model: Turbulent flow can be solved numerically using DNS (direct Numerical Simulation) where the governing equations are solved directly. This method is however difficult to use in large system since it requires huge computational resources and time. For engineering application the Reynolds decomposition is mostly used where the variables are decomposed into a time

averaged and a (Hongmin, 2009)

ui = U i + u p = P + p'
' i

fluctuating

component (7)

Moving reference frame model: The steady state approximation MRF, allows individual cell zones to rotate (7 or translate with different speeds. This is achieved by dividing the domain into separate zones where the flow is solved in stationary or rotating coordinate systems. To transform the fluid velocities form stationary to rotating frames,
& & & u r = u vr & & & vr = r

Substituting these decomposed terms into the governing equations for incompressible flow gives the Reynolds averaged Navier-stokes equations (RANS)
U i =0 xi

(8) (9)

(13)

U i U i p ui + U j = P + ui'u 'j t x j xi x j x j

Decomposing the variables in Navier-stokes equation yields an additional term, uiuj in the momentum equation. This term is called led the Reynolds stress tensor. The system of equations has more unknown variables than equations to solve and is therefore not closed. The Boussinesq hypothesis relates the Reynolds stress to the mean flow velocity gradients and can be expressed as in (10)
u i u i 2 ui'u 'j = x + x 3 ij k j j

& u r is the velocity relative to the rotating & & frame, u is the absolute velocity and vr is & whirl velocity (due to moving frame). is & angular velocity and r is the position vector to the rotating frame.
Solving the equations of motion in the rotating reference frame results in additional terms in the momentum equation
& + .ur = 0 t (14)

(10)

where ij is the kronecker delta and k the turbulent kinetic energy, which is defined as
1 ' k = ui'u i 2

& & & & & & u + .(u r u ) + ( u ) = p + + F t

(15)

(11) (12)

t =C

k2

For the computations performed in this paper the realizable k- turbulence model was used. In the k- model the turbulent viscosity (t) is achieved by solving two transport equations, one for the turbulent kinetic energy (k) and one for the turbulent dissipation rate (). The two transport equations are:
U i U j U i k k t k +U j i = + + + t x j x j x j xi t xJ x j
+U j = t x j x j t + U j U i x + C 1 k x + x j i j t U i 2 C 2 x k J

The constants , k, , , C 1 , empirical.

C 2 , C

are Where is the viscous stress. The coriolis and centripetal are included in (b) the Figure accelerations 4. (a) Surface mesh and Volume mesh generated in Star CCM +

& & momentum equation with the term ( u ). These equations are solved using commercially available star ccm+ software.

3.2 Mesh and boundary conditions In this section, we validate the numerical model with the experimental results. This will enable us to simulate various fan designs without any need for prototypes. The physical configuration and computational domain of the fan and volute is depicted in Fig. 4. In all the simulation the volute casing was kept constant and only the fan design was changed. The geometry cleaning and surface mesh was carried out in Hyper Mesh, commercially available meshing software. Polyhedral volume mesh for the domain was generated in star ccm+. The mesh size for the fan and volute casing was about 5 lakhs cells. This was arrived after the grid independence study with mesh size varying from 1 to 7 lakh cells. In the rotary fan region, fine clustered mesh was generated and care was taken such that the value of wall y+ does not exceed 15. For validation we choose two fans with 12 and 18 blades. Other details are given in table 1. Stagnation inlet, pressure outlet, and rpm of the fan are given as boundary conditions in order to replicate the physical model in the numerical model. The CFD model also run at same speed intervals as in experimental speeds and the results were compared to that obtained by the physical model. Table 1. Configuration of fans used in Experimentation
Fan 1 Fan 2 No of blades 12 18 Inlet angle Outet angle 68 52 44 44 ID of fan 90 90 OD of Thickness fan of blade 132 1.6 132 1.6

agreement with test results for both the fan 1 and fan 2. The maximum error between the CFD model and the physical model is approximately 3%, which is within the acceptable limit. For further validation, torque (or moment) required to rotate the fan at a given speed is compared with experimental and CFD results. Table 2 shows the moment of the fan from experiments and CFD. As described earlier, moment due to fan was measured by measuring moments with and without fan and then subtracting it. Fig. 6 shows the comparison between experimental data and CFD results. Two points has to note here: First, results compares well between experiment and CFD at lower speeds. Second, the results show the tendency of divergence at higher speeds. The mismatch of the results at higher speeds may be due to the increase in frictional resistance of the mounting plate and fan, the torsional vibration loads exerted on the shaft due to higher rotational speeds.

CFD results of fan 1 CFD results of fan 2

22

Experimental results of fan 1 Experimental results of fan 2

20

Outlet velocity (m/sec)

18

16

14

12

10

8 2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

Speed (rpm)

Figure 5 Validation of the numerical model with experimental results Table 2. Momentum table for combined fan and mounting plate and mounting plate alone
Speed (rpm) Fan 1 Fan 1 With fan 2 With fan 2 Fan 2 Without fans With fan 1 (Experiment, (Expermment, (Experiment, (Simulation, (Expermment, (Expermment, (Simulation 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 Nm x 10 ) Nm x 10 ) Nm x 10 ) Nm x 10 ) Nm x 10 ) , Nm x 10 ) Nm x 10 ) (A) 22 25 27 31 38 (B) 34 44 54 64 78 (A) - (B) 12 17 27 33 40 (C) 39 50 61 74 91 (A) - (C) 17 25 34 43 53

3.3. Validation of the numerical model Fig. 5 shows the comparison of outlet velocities obtained from experiments and CFD model. As expected the flow velocity increase with increasing rpm. CFD results are in good

2000 2500 3000 3500 4000

11.98 18.49 26.56 36 47

15.6 24.19 34.753 47 61

CFD results of fan 1 CFD results of fan 2

70

Experimental results of fan 1 Experimental results of fan 2

60

50

Moment (N-m)

40

30

The deviation when pressure boundary conditions are used can be explained from the Fig. 8. The re-circulation zones at the volute outlet and blade inlet can be clearly seen. Hence, fan performance data at high pressure were generated using mass flow rate boundary conditions.

20

10

0 2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

Speed (rpm)

Figure 6 Validation of Numerical model for Momentum of the fan. For further simulations we have used the same numerical model for different fan designs. It is to be noticed that close agreement between the simulations and experimental results was possible due to the simplicity of the experimental setup and CFD model. 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION It is important to generate the performance curve for the given fan to investigate the overall performance of the fan. The generation of the performance curve is carried out in the numerical model, by providing pressure resistance at the out let of the volute. This essentially represents the system resistance the fan has to overcome. Fig. 7 shows variation of outlet velocity as a function of inlet velocity. The variation should be a straight line. At high pressure deviation in the plot was observed. The same data was generated providing mass flow rate boundary condition. It is clear from the Fig. 7 that variation is linear signifying that continuity equation is satisfied.
Outlet pressure
14 12

Figure 8 Re-circulation zones at the fan blade inlet and volute outlet is seen when highpressure boundary conditions are used. The performance curves are generated using mass flow rate boundary condition for fans with 12 (fan1) and 22 (fan2) bladesc as shown in Fig. 9.
Pressure coeeficient - Fan1 Efficiency-Fan 2
1 0.9

Pressure coefficient-Fan2 power coefficient-Fan1

Efficiency-Fan 1 power coefficient-Fan2

0.06

Mass flow
0.8

0.05

Pressure coefficient/ Efficiency

0.7 0.04 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.01

Direction of increasing pressure

Outlet Velocity(m/s)
10 8 6 4 2 0 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21

0.03

0.02

0.1 0 0.05 0 0.13

0.06

0.07

0.08

0.09

0.1

0.11

0.12

Flow coefficient

Inlet Velocity (m/s)

Figure 7 Inlet and outlet velocity plot for different boundary conditions.

Figure 9 Performance characteristics comparison fan 1 (12 blades) and fan 2 (22 blades).
7

Power coefficient

Fig. 9 shows the variation of pressure coefficient, efficiency and power coefficient as a function of flow coefficient for fan 1 and fan 2. Following points can be noted: First, at highpressure coefficient, fan 1 and fan 2 have comparable magnitudes of flow coefficients. The difference between the flow coefficients becomes apparent at low-pressure coefficient. This suggests that at high system resistance (i.e. at high pressure coefficient) effect of number of blades becomes insignificant. Clearly, fan performance study in a high system resistance is not suitable. Second, similar trends can be seen in the variation of efficiency and power coefficient. With higher flow coefficient, power consumed (power coefficient) by the fan also increases. Understanding fan power consumption is
(a)

important for optimization (Wang and Muller, 2000) Now, we present the pressure contour variations in the volute and fan for three different pressure coefficients 0.301, 0.353 and 0.404. Fig. 10 demonstrates the pressure contours at three different pressure coefficients. It is noticed that as pressure coefficient increases, the pressure variations from the exit of the fan to the outlet of the duct becomes uniform. It Increase in pressure coefficient beyond 0.404 would result in reverse flow and simulation model would become unstable. It is to be noticed further that when pressure variations becomes uniform, the fan shows maximum efficiency. Hence, pressure variation should become uniform in the duct to achieve maximum efficiency of the fan. 4. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK: The follwing conclusions canbe drawn from the above discussion: 1. An experimental set-up for measuring centrifugal fan performance with uniform blades for automobile engine cooling is discussed. 2. A numerical CFD model was developed to validate the results with experimental set-up. The simulated results are in reasonable agreement with experimental measurements. 3. At higher pressure coefficient, mass flow rate boundary conditions gives better convergence of the CFD model than pressure boundary conditions. 4. Increase in the number of blades increases the flow coefficient accompanied by increase in power coefficient. However, difference in the performance (efficiency, flow and power coefficient) tends to decrease at higher pressure coefficient. Hence, it is concluded that fan performance testing under high pressure coefficient would not provide the true measure of the fan characteristics. Under high pressure coefficient all fan behave similarly.

(b)

(c)

Figure 10 the pressure variation at mid plane for pressure coefficients (a) 0.301 (b) 0.353 (c) 0.404.
8

5. The best efficiecy for a given fan is possible when it having a uniform pressure from outlet of the fan to outlet of the volute. 6. Using fan laws, the same experimental setup and numerical methodolgy can be extend to study various fan design parameters like inlet angle, outlet angle, diameter ratio, blade thickness, number of blades. NOMENCLATURE & ABBREVIATION A Inlet area, mm2 P Pressure, pa pt Total pressure difference , pa Q Volume flow rate, m3/s r Outer radius of the fan, mm k Turbulence kinetic energy, m2/s2 u Mean velocity, m/s v Velocity, m/s & Relative velocity, m/s ur Inlet angle, degrees Outlet angle, degrees Volute angle, degrees Kronecker delta Dissipation rate, m2/s3 Density, kg/m3 Shear stress, N/m2 Dynamic viscosity of air, kg/m-s RPM Revolution per minute CAD Computer aided design CFD Computational fluid dynamics
Q Definitions 2 rN Flow coefficient 2r 30

REFERENCES:
Bruno E. 1962. Design and operation of centrifugal, axial-flow and cross flow fans, Pergamon press Coggiola E., Dessale B., 1998. CFD based Designs for automotive engine cooling fan systems, SAE technical paper # 980427 Hongmin Li, 2009. Flow driven by a stamped metal cooling fan Numerical model and validation, Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 33, 683694 Kiura, T., Kushibiki T., Shimoi T, 2005. Research on prediction of cooling air flow in small air-cooling utility engines, SAE technical paper # 2005-32-0023/JSAE 20056606 Manish G., Kumar O. H., Prasad N., Swamy V., 2005. Experimental and CFD simulationbased analytical optimization of air-cooling system for a small 4-stroke engine, SAE technical Paper #2005-32-0026/JSAE 20056607 Sreenivasulu T., Siva Prasad G., Vishal K., Manish G., Pattabhiraman V., 2009. Design and Optimisation of Cooling Fan for Forced Air-cooled Engines, STAR Indian Conference, Chennai Vishal K., O. P. Singh, Manish G,. Yatin, V. C, 2008. Optimization of Air-Cooling System of 4-Stroke Scooter Engine, SAE technical paper # 2008-32-0071 (SAE) / 20084771 (JSAE) Wang, D. G, Muller, P. K., 2000. Improving cooling efficiency by increasing fan power usage, Microelectronics Journal 31, 765771 Xiaomin L., Qun D., Guang X., 2008. Engineering application of computational fluid mechanics, vol. 2 (2) 130-140.

Pressure coefficient Efficiency

Pt Q T

Pt rN 2 30

Power coefficient

Flow coefficent X Power coefficent Efficiency