A quantitative study of the blade passing frequency noise of a centrifugal fan

Tonal noise constitutes the major part of the overall fan noise, particularly the blade passing frequency (BPF) noise, which is generally the most annoying component. This paper quantitatively studies the BPF tonal noise of a centrifugal fan, including casing aerodynamic noise, blade aerodynamic noise and casing structural noise. Firstly, fan noise generation and propagation is discussed and the measured spectra of fan noise and casing vibration are presented. Secondly, a fully 3-D transient simulation of the internal flow field of the fan is performed. Flow interactions between the impeller and the volute casing result in the periodic pressure fluctuations on solid walls of the impeller and casing. This pressure fluctuation, in the aeroacoustic study, is modeled as aeroacoustic dipole source according to the Lighthill’s acoustic analogy theory. With the inhomogeneous wave equations solved by the boundary element method, the BPF casing and blade aerodynamic noise radiation is obtained. Finally, in the casing structural noise study, the casing structural vibration under the excitation of BPF pressure fluctuation is calculated by the finite element method and sound radiation is solved by the boundary element method subsequently. Results demonstrate that the casing aerodynamic noise is the main contribution to the centrifugal fan noise with the sound power level of 103 dB followed by the blade noise (91 dB), and the casing structural noise is 79 dB.