A CFD approach to evaluate performance of pedestal fan blades

Abstract

This paper presents the construction and validation of a computational fluid dynamics framework for the performance evaluation of pedestal fan blades using commercial computational fluid dynamics software. A selected pedestal fan blade was evaluated according to evaluation standards under the Sri Lanka sustainable energy authority and Sri Lanka standards institution. The experimental setup was designed and developed to satisfy the required ability to test a pedestal fan blade according to the standard testing procedure presented by the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority. For the computational investigation, a geometrical domain was generated identical to the test chamber where the blade was tested , matching its dimensions. The method utilized for the simulation was the moving reference frame method which is a well- known method for simulating rotating elements without relying on dynamic meshing which would require excessive computational resources and time. A mapped hexahedral mesh was generated with only the rotating zone containing tetrahedral elements. The simulation was conducted under standard room conditions. The results of the computational fluid dynamic simulation were compared against the experimental results which showed an accuracy of 91%.