Designing Axial Flow Fan for Flow and Noise

A comprehensive finite element methodology is developed to predict the compressible flow performance of a non-symmetric 7-blade axial flow fan, and to quantify the source strength and sound pressure levels at any location in the system. The acoustic and flow performances of the fan are predicted simultaneously using a computational aero-acoustic technique combining transient flow analysis and noise propagation. The calculated sound power levels compare favorably with the measured sound power data per AMCA 300-96 code.