CFD Predictions and Experimental Comparisons of Pressure Drop Effects of Turning Vanes in 90° Duct Elbows

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-13-2009

Publication Title

Journal of Energy Engineering

Volume

135

Issue

4

First page number:

119

Last page number:

126

Abstract

This paper presents new results for numerical predictions of air flow and pressure distribution in two commonly used elbows: (1) 90° mitered duct elbows with turning vanes having 0.05 m radius, 0.038 m vane spacing and (2) 90° mitered duct elbows without turning vanes, in 0.2×0.2 m (8 in.×8 in.) duct cross section using the STAR-CD computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. A k-ε turbulence model for high Reynolds number and k-ε Chen model were used for that purpose for comparative purposes. The simulation used 13 different Reynolds numbers chosen between the range of 1×105 and 2×106 . To validate the CFD results, the results of two experimental papers using guided vanes were compared with simulated vane runs under the same condition. The first experimental study used a 0.6×0.6 m (24 in.×24 in.) square elbow with 0.05 m radius, 0.038 m vane spacing and air velocities at 2.54 m/s (500 fpm) and 25.4 m/s (5,000 fpm), the second experiment used a 0.81×0.2 m (32 in.×8 in.) rectangular elbow geometry with 0.05 m radius, 0.038 m vane spacing with air velocities from 10.16 m/s (2,000 fpm) to 13.97 m/s (2,750 fpm). For Reynolds numbers (1.00–2.00)×105 the pressure drop difference between vaned and unvaned elbows was found to be 35 Pa as compared to 145 Pa. The simulations also agreed reasonably well with published experimental results. For the 0.6×0.6 m (24 in.×24 in.) square elbow and 0.81×0.2 m (32 in.×8 in.) rectangular elbow with vanes, the difference in pressure drop was 3.9 and 4.1% respectively and indicates that CFD models can be used for predictive purposes in this important HVAC applications area.

Keywords

Air ducts – Aerodynamics; Air flow; Air pressure; Computational fluid dynamics

Disciplines

Aerodynamics and Fluid Mechanics | Engineering | Mechanical Engineering

Language

English

Permissions

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