Study on the aerodynamic noise of internal flow of regenerative flow compressors for a fuel-cell car

Abstract

The regenerative flow compressor used in fuel-cell cars generates high aerodynamic noise, which is the main source of noise. Compared with the research on centrifugal or axial turbomachinery, research on the noise of regenerative flow compressors is far from adequate. This paper presents the on-going work on it at Tongji University based on both experimental and computational works. In this study, a three-dimensional unsteady computational fluid dynamic model of the compressor was constructed with the large eddy approach. The pressure fluctuation, vortex noise source and Ffowcs William-Hawkings (FW-H) method were used to analyze the characteristics of the aerodynamic noise sources. Additionally, the far-field aerodynamic noise generated by the internal flow of the compressor was predicted using the aeroacoustic finite element method. The simulation results were validated with the experimental data. It was found that combining the fluid dynamic model and aeroacoustic finite element analysis promising results for aerodynamic noise prediction of compressors could be produced. The effects of the impeller parameters on the aerodynamic noise of the compressor were also studied.