Experimental and numerical investigations of the tip leakage flow of axial fans with circumferential skewed blades under off-design conditions

Experimental and numerical investigations of tip leakage flow of circumferential skewed axial fans were conducted under off-design conditions. Two circumferential skewed fans, with the blade skew angles of 8.3° forward and backward, respectively, and a base fan were investigated in this study. Aerodynamic and aeroacoustic performances were measured. The Navier—Stokes flow simulations were validated experimentally and the key analysis of tip leakage flow was based on computational fluid dynamics results. The simulations show that with a decrease in flowrate, the start of the tip leakage vortex moves towards the leading edge in the chordwise direction and towards the hub in the spanwise direction. These movements are less significant for the forward-skewed blade than for the backward-skewed blade. The strength of the tip leakage vortex decreases along the vortex line. The vortex strength for the forward-skew blade is significantly less than that for the backward-skewed blade. The aeroacoustic source intensity in the tip clearance region is reduced by employing circumferential skewed blades and changes with a change in flowrate in the same manner as the measured sound pressure level. The forward-skewed blade is found to be effective in eliminating noise sources in the tip clearance region and in controlling tip leakage flow to expand the stall-free operation range under off-design conditions.