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A centrifugal compressor usually operates with low isentropic efficiency and a terrible stable operating range, resulting from the complex impeller flow structure companied with the intense interaction among the impeller and the diffuser downstream. In many studies, the potential of centrifugal compressor tandem-impeller configurations for improving the compressor has been demonstrated. Whereas, compared with the convincing results on the tandem-designed axial compressors, the results on tandem impellers are limited and contradictory. Very little insight has been provided into the flow mechanisms inside tandem impellers, which is considered to be the primary reason for the confusion in tandem impeller design and application. Tandem impellers are expected to exhibit a totally different behavior due to the intense aerodynamic interaction between the inducer and the exducer, which substantially contributes to the flow structure and the compressor performance change. In the present study, a numerical study of a highly-loaded centrifugal compressor with various tandem designs was conducted to explore the inducer/exducer matching characteristics and the underlying flow mechanism inside tandem impellers. Two tandem impeller design parameters, namely, the inducer/exducer clocking fraction and the axial gap (overlap), were considered in the tandem impeller design process. The tandem impeller was also compared to the existing conventional impeller which the tandem impeller was redesigned for. The results demonstrated that the tandem-designed impeller can improve the centrifugal compressor stage performance and intense inducer/exducer interaction can be observed with changes in the clocking fraction and the axial gap (overlap). The tandem impeller performance is sensitive to changes in axial gap (overlap) when the suction side of the exducer blade is circumferentially close to the inducer blade. The fundamental reason for the performance variation in the inducer and the exducer lies in the inducer pressure change in the blade trailing edge that is determined by the Kutta condition. Additionally, the correlation between the tandem impeller slip effect and the discharge flow quality should be emphasized in the inducer/exducer gap jet analysis, in which the jet injection angle and the Coanda effect of the exducer suction surface critically affect the discharge flow characteristics.

The unique Coanda surface has a great influence on the performance of bladeless fan. However, there is few studies to explain the relationship between the performance and Coanda surface curvature at present. In order to gain a qualitative understanding of effect of the curvature on the performance of bladeless fan, numerical studies are performed in this paper. Firstly, three-dimensional numerical simulation is done by Fluent software. For the purpose to obtain detailed information of the flow field around the Coanda surface, two-dimensional numerical simulation is also conducted. Five types of Coanda surfaces with different curvature are designed, and the flow behaviour and the performance of them are analyzed and compared with those of the prototype. The analysis indicates that the curvature of Coanda surface is strongly related to blowing performance, It is found that there is an optimal curvature of Coanda surfaces among the studied models. Simulation result shows that there is a special low pressure region. With increasing curvature in Y direction, several low pressure regions gradually enlarged, then begin to merge slowly, and finally form a large area of low pressure. From the analyses of streamlines and velocity angle, it is found that the magnitude of the curvature affects the flow direction and reasonable curvature can induce fluid flow close to the wall. Thus, it leads to that the curvature of the streamlines is consistent with that of Coanda surface. Meanwhile, it also causes the fluid movement towards the most suitable direction. This study will provide useful information to performance improvements of bladeless fans.

To control the film thickness of zinc in the process of continuous hot-dip galvanizing, it is known from the early days that the gas wiping through an air knife is the most effective one. The gas wiping using in galvanizing process brings about a problem of splashing from the strip edge for a certain high speed of coating. So, in the present study, the effects of the deflection angle of Coanda nozzle on jet structure and the distribution of impinging pressure at the plate surface are investigated numerically and experimentally. In numerical analysis, the governing equations consisted of three-dimensional time dependent full Navier-Stokes equations, standard k-ɛ turbulence model to solve turbulent stress and so on are employed. In experiment, 16 channel pressure scanning valve and 3-axis auto traversing unit are used to measure the impinging pressure at the strip surface. As a result, it is found that the smaller the deflection angle for the same nozzle slit of air knife is, the larger the impinging pressure is. To reduce the size of separation bubble and to enhance the cutting ability, it is recommendable to use an air knife with the Coanda nozzle.

The Coanda effect has long been employed in the aerospace applications to improve the performances of various devices. This effect is the ability of a flow to follow a curved contour without separation and has well been utilized in ejectors where a high speed jet of fluid emerges from a nozzle in the ejector body, follows a curved surface and drags the secondary flow into the ejector. In Coanda ejectors, the secondary flow is dragged in the ejector due to the primary flow momentum. The transfer of momentum from the primary flow to the secondary flow takes place through turbulent mixing and viscous effects. The secondary flow is then dragged by turbulent shear force of the ejector while being mixed with the primary flow by the persistence of a large turbulent intensity throughout the ejector. The performance of a Coanda ejector is studied mainly based on how well it drags the secondary flow and the amount of mixing between the two flows at the ejector exit. The aim of the present study is to investigate the influence of various geometric parameters and pressure ratios on the Coanda ejector performance. The effect of various factors, such as, the pressure ratio, primary nozzle and ejector configurations on the system performance has been evaluated based on a performance parameter defined elsewhere. The performance of the Coanda ejector strongly depends on the primary nozzle configuration and the pressure ratio. The mixing layer growth plays a major role in optimizing the performance of the Coanda ejector as it decides the ratio of secondary mass flow rate to primary mass flow rate and the mixing length.

The effect of pressurized air inlets in the reservoir upstream of the annular slit on characteristics of the axial and tangential velocity components is investigated numerically, and the mechanism of occurrence of spiral nozzle flow is clarified. In simulations, Unified Platform for Aerospace Computational Simulation (UPACS) is used. The governing equations under consideration are the unsteady compressible Navier - Stokes. A second-order finite volume scheme with MUSCL (Roe scheme) is used to discretize the spatial derivatives, and a second order-central difference scheme for the viscous terms, and a MFGS (Matrix Free Gauss Seidel) is employed for time integration. Spalart-Allmaras model was used as a turbulence model. The results obtained are compared with velocity distributions in the experiment measured by the two-component fiber optic laser Doppler velocimeter system. The existence of discrete pressurized air inlets that leads to the occurrence of asymmetrical characteristics is a very important factor for the formation of spiral flow.

Techniques using Coanda effect have been applied to the fluid control devices. In this field, experimental studies were so far performed for the spiral jet obtained by the Coanda jet issuing from a conical cylinder with an annular slit, thrust vectoring of supersonic Coanda jets and so on. It is important from the viewpoints of effective applications to investigate the characteristics of the supersonic Coanda jet in detail. In the present study, the effects of pressure ratios and nozzle configurations on the characteristics of the supersonic Coanda jet have been investigated experimentally by a schlieren optical method and pressure measurements. Furthermore, Navier-Stokes equations were solved numerically using a 2nd-order TVD finite-volume scheme with a 3rd-order three stage Runge-Kutta method for time integration. k - e model was used in the computations. The effects of initial conditions on Coanda flow were investigated numerically. As a result, the simulated flow fields were compared with experimental data in good agreement qualitatively.

Flame stabilization in attachment jet combustors is based on the existence of the high temperature recirculation zone, provided by the Coanda effect of an attachment jet. The single attachment jet in a rectangular channel is a fundamental form of this type of flow. In this paper, the detailed characteristics of turbulent flow of a single attachment jet were experimentally studied by using a 2-D LDV. The flowfield consists of a forward flow and two reverse flows. The forward one is composed of a curved and a straight section. The curved section resembles a bent turbulent free jet, and the straight part is basically a section of turbulent wall jet. A turbulent counter-gradient transport region exists at the curved section. According to the results, this kind of combustor should have a large sudden enlargement ratio and not too narrow in width.