Abstract
We computationally and experimentally investigated the effect of tip vortex on the aerodynamic performance of centrifugal blowers with shrouded impeller blades. The computational results showed that the tip vortex occurred at the leading edge of the blade, and caused loss and low velocity region in the blade passage. The distributions of the loss and the low velocity region depended on the meridian shapes of the blade around the leading edge. We confirmed the correlation between the predicted loss and low velocity region caused by the tip vortex with the measured aerodynamic performance in two blowers with different blade length along the hub.
