Optimizing the design parameters of radial tip centrifugal blower for dust test chamber application through numerical and statistical analysis

Abstract

The tightness of electro-technical components for dust entrapment is an extremely important parameter to be considered for effective functioning. International Electro-technical Commission (IEC) developed standards for testing the parts under severe environments like rain, dust etc. The procedure for developing and conducting the dust proof test is known by IEC as 60068-2-68 standard. The blower is an essential component used in the dust test system in order to create a forced airflow along with dust to simulate a dusty environment. The radial tip centrifugal blower is designed in this work for the application of dust test chamber. The pressure and velocity of airflow at the outlet of the radial tip centrifugal blower is mostly influenced by inlet blade angle (b1), impeller diameter (D2) and impeller width (b). The design procedure is elaborated and the above said design parameters are optimized using iterative procedure using MATLAB software. A numerical analysis is carried out using ANSYS Fluent software for the design of Taguchi L9 orthogonal array. In the perspective of further exploring the relationship between design parameters of blower and output parameters like pressure and velocity, a statistical analysis is carried out using Design-Expert software. The optimized design parameters are then used for manufacturing the blower. The experimental test is carried out on the designed blower. The experimental, numerical and statistical results for the optimized design parameters are compared and known to be in good consensus.

Keywords

• dust test
• design of radial tip centrifugal blower
• optimization
• numerical analysis
• statistical analysis
• experimental analysis