Noise reduction is of increasing importance in the community.
Consequently, the development of aero-acoustics is gaining special focus
within industry. Computational Aero-Acoustics (CAA), the coupling of
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Computational Acoustics (CA), is
being used in the design and assessment of a range of products from
HVAC ducts to domestic appliances.
The process for carrying out an Aero-Acoustic simulation begins with
the solution of the transient flow dynamics in order to compute accurately
the pressure fluctuations at a number of points in the computational
domain. These fluctuations are passed to the acoustic code to propagate
the acoustic waves through the system and determine its acoustic
signature. To minimize errors in the acoustic propagation analysis it is thus
essential that accurate predictions of the noise sources be obtained.
This paper concentrates on the CFD part of the aero-acoustic
simulation. The case considered has been taken from the European
project DESTINY:3 and comprises a tangential blower located inside a
complex duct system. Air is drawn into the fan through two inlets and exits
through a single duct. The computational methodology and flow field
predictions are presented and compared to experimental PIV data. The
numerical predictions were found to be in good agreement with the
experimental data, reproducing the asymmetries in the flow field.
