A Finite-Element-Simulation Workflow to Investigate the Aero- and Vibro-Acoustic
Signature of an Enclosed Centrifugal Fan 2024-01-2940
Centrifugal fans are applied in many industrial and civil applications,
such as manufacturing processes and building HVAC systems. They
can also be found in automotive applications. Noise-reduction mea-
sures for centrifugal fans are often challenging to establish, as acous-
tic performance may be considered a tertiary purchase criterion after
energetic efficiency and price. Nonetheless, their versatile application
raises the demand for noise control. In a low-Mach-number centrifugal
fan, acoustic waves are predominantly excited by aerodynamic fluctu-
ations in the flow field and transmit to the exterior via the housing
and duct walls. The scientific literature documents numerous mech-
anisms that cause flow-induced sound generation, even though only
some are considered well-understood. Numerical simulation methods
are widely used to gather spatially high-resolved insights into physical
fields. However, for a centrifugal fan, the numerical simulation of the
coupled aero- and vibroacoustic sound emission faces several hurdles,
including a tedious meshing procedure, rotating parts, and the dispar-
ity of physical scales that need to be resolved for the acoustic field, the
flow field, and the mechanical field. This work thus suggests a hybrid
workflow to simulate sound generation and the through-wall sound
transmission of an enclosed centrifugal fan. The workflow is based
on three consecutive simulation runs: 1) a finite-volume-based in-
compressible CFD simulation to determine the low-Mach-number flow
field, 2) a finite-element-based computational aeroacoustic simulation
to determine the in-duct sound field, and 3) a finite-element-based vi-
broacoustic simulation that solves for the direct-coupled mechanic-
acoustic simulation to determine the through-wall sound transmission.
Additionally, an exemplary simulation of a test fan is conducted and
discussed.
Author(s):
Patrick Heidegger, Felix Czwielong, Stefan Schoder, Stefan Becker, Manfred Kaltenbacher
Affiliated:
IGTE - TU Graz, LSTM - FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
Event:
13th International Styrian Noise, Vibration & Harshness Congress: The European Automotive Noise Conference
ISSN:
0148-7191
e-ISSN:
2688-3627
Related Topics:
Computer simulation
Fans
Simulation and modeling
Manufacturing processes
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
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