Axial Fan Blade Tone Cancellation Using Optimally Tuned Quarter Wavelength Resonators

Fan noise challenges noise control engineers in developing products ranging in scale from small ventilation systems to large turbomachines. The dominant noise source in many axial fans is the tonal noise due to rotor/stator interactions at the fundamental blade passing frequency. Flow-excited resonators have been used in the past for minimizing blade tone sound pressure levels (SPLs) generated by centrifugal fans through means of secondary source cancellation. The focus of this research is to extend that cancellation method to axial fans by attaching flow-driven quarter wavelength resonators fitted with optimal mouth perforations around the perimeter of the fan’s shroud. A ducted-fan test facility was developed to measure upstream and downstream noise radiated from a test fan. Resonators were mounted at specific locations around the fan’s shroud to obtain reductions in blade tone SPLs in both flow directions. They were driven into resonance via the unsteady pressure from the passing blades. An analytical model using transmission line theory was developed and validated experimentally to characterize the resonator’s behavior under various flow conditions and mouth geometries. This model was used to predict the resonator’s potential for reducing in-duct blade tones for specific flows and mouth perforation patterns. In a series of experiments to obtain the optimal resonator mouth perforations, it was observed that upstream and downstream SPL attenuations require different placement of the resonator mouth relative to the blade of the fan. With a single tuned resonator it was demonstrated that the fundamental blade tone SPLs can be reduced by as much as 20 dB in either the upstream or the downstream duct but not in both directions simultaneously. This behavior results when combining the resonator’s monopolelike sound field with the dipolelike sound field of the fan’s blades. Further studies are underway to extend the above method to higher pressure fans operating at speeds that generate higher order duct modes.