| Summary: | Curve diffuser is often used in HVAC and wind tunnel systems to provide pressure
recovery and avoid excessive energy loss to the surrounding environment.
Performance of curve diffuser is disturbed mainly by the presences of flow separation
and secondary flow vortices occurred due to the effect of turning angle, in which scarce
literature found. In this study, the effect of turning angle from 30° to 180° configured
with an area ratio of 1.60 to 4.00 and inflow Reynolds number of 5.934x104 – 1.783x105
on loss characteristics and flow rectification of curve diffuser is investigated with
optimum configuration is proposed. Performance of curve diffuser is evaluated in
terms of pressure recovery and flow uniformity using ANSYS CFD equipped with
validated Standard k-ɛ model (ske) and enhanced wall treatment of y+ = 1.2 - 1.7.
Results show that performance of pressure recovery and flow uniformity decreases
respectively by 85.71% and 45.84% as the angle of turn increases from 30° to 180°.
Curve diffuser with minimum angle of turn 30o
, optimum area ratio 2.16 and
intermediate Rein 8.163x104
turns out to be the best configuration to provide pressure
recovery of 0.399 and flow uniformity of 3.630 m/s.
|
|---|