Analysis of the Deterministic Unsteady Flow in a Low-Speed Axial Fan With Inlet Guide Vanes

This paper is conceived as an extension in the analysis of the periodic stator-rotor interaction in a low-speed axial fan with inlet guide vanes. Here, the present work focuses on the deterministic fluctuations that occur in the axial gap between the blade rows. In particular, we present experimental data on the phase averaged velocity in the stator frame of reference. Detailed measurements of the flow field were obtained using hot-wire anemometry in a traverse sector that covered the whole span of the stage for a complete stator pitch. The blade-to-blade velocity gradient in the rotor passage is observed as an unsteady flow in the stator frame of reference due to the relative motion of the blades. As a consequence, this periodic fluctuation is superimposed on the steady vane-to-vane velocity distribution, resulting in a nonuniform unsteadiness with additional phase-dependent wake-blockage interaction. This phase-dependent interaction is determined by the difference between the overall deterministic fluctuation and the rotating spatial blade-to-blade distribution, when the latter is accurately transformed to the stator reference frame. The results revealed that high unsteadiness in the tip region is mainly derived from the radial increase of the blade-to-blade nonuniformities in the rotor, whereas the wake-blockage interaction exhibits a spanwise uniform distribution. Hence, the hub-to-tip torsion of the blades is responsible for setting off a major spatial distortion between the rows. Complementarily, we observed that a reduction in the rows’ spacing or an increase in the blade loadings leads to a higher wake-blockage interaction, modifying the impingement of the incoming stator wakes. In addition, the deterministic stresses were calculated by time averaging the phase-dependent velocity correlations and compared to the turbulent stresses. The deterministic stresses were also segregated in temporal, spatial, and spatial-temporal correlations in order to analyze the dominant mechanisms involved in their generation. At this point, the deterministic kinetic energy levels were found to be generally lower than turbulent kinetic energy levels, with both temporal and spatial correlations being the most significant terms of the tensor.