Original Paper Influence of Blade Row Distance on Performance and Flow Condition of Contra-Rotating Small-Sized Axial Fan

Small-sized axial fans are used as air coolers for electric equipment. There is a strong demand for higher power of fans according to the increase of quantity of heat from electric devices. Therefore, higher rotational speed design is conducted, although, it causes the deterioration of the efficiency and the increase of noise. Then, the adoption of contra-rotating rotors for small-sized fans is proposed for the improvement of the performance. In the case of contra-rotating rotors, blade row distance between the front and the rear rotors influences on the performance and the noise. Therefore, it is important to clarify the optimum blade row distance between front and rear rotors. The performance curves of the contra-rotating small-sized axial fan under the condition of different blade row distances are shown and the blade row interaction between the front and the rear rotors are discussed by the numerical results. Furthermore, the optimum blade row distance of the contra-rotating small-sized axial fan is considered