Aeroacoustic investigations for a refrigerator air duct and flow systems

Abstract

Noise has become an important public health problem with industrialization, and has become a crucial design problem for engineering. For this reason, noise reduction studies have became the focus, especially in the white goods, automotive and aviation sectors, which requires interaction with human. Among the vehicles and products in the aforementioned sectors, the refrigerators, unlike the others, are located in the center of the living area and work throughout the day. Therefore, possible sound problems are observed more quickly by the users and are found to be disturbing. At this point, the investigation and reduction of the acoustic propagation of existing products by various numerical and experimental methods is a valuable contribution to both industry and literature. Within the scope of this thesis, the freezer compartment of a refrigerator with a No frost cooling system was investigated from an aeroacoustic perspective. The freezer compartment consists of three drawers where food will be placed, an axial fan that provides air flow, an evaporator cover that separates the evaporator pipes and the interior volume, and plastic walls surrounding them. The main source of air flow noise in the system is the axial fan. For this reason, in the first step of the study, solo aeroacoustic examination of the axial fan was made. Afterwards, the entire freezer volume was examined and the study was completed with three different model proposals in which acoustic emission was reduced. The flow field analysis of the axial fan with an operational speed of 1200 rpm was carried out with commercial software ANSYS Fluent. In this numerical model, Shear Stress Transport 𝑘 – 𝜔 turbulence model was used. Governing equations was solved under three-dimensional, transient, viscous, incompressible flow assumptions. The rotation of the fan was defined by the sliding mesh method. The numerical flow solution was validated with experimental volumetric flow rate data. According to the numerical and experimental results, the flow rate of the axial fan under the specified conditions was determined as 19 L/s. A hybrid aeroacoustic model is created by giving the pressure outputs of the flow solution as input to the acoustic model. For the acoustic solution, Ffowcs Williams & Hawkings (FW-H) model defined in ANSYS Fluent was used and the result of the solution was compared with the sound pressure data collected in the full anechoic acoustic room. Although there is some difference between the numerical and experimental sound pressure curves, it was observed that the hybrid model established to understand the general trend and to catch the blade passing frequency was successful. It was predicted that the difference between experimental and numerical measurements occurred for two reasons. The first is absence of the fan motor in the numerical analysis. Another reason is that the acoustic propagation resulting from the excitation of the air flow to the system structures cannot be predicted with this model. In the second step of the study, the model validated with axial fan solutions was applied to the freezer compartment. The aim here is to reveal the air flow distribution in the freezer volume and to identify the regions where turbulence effects increase. In the numerical model, the axial fan was rotated at an operational speed of 1200 rpm and this rotation was achieved by the sliding mesh method. As a result of the analysis, it was seen that the turbulence formation started at the wing tips as observed in the solo fan analyses, and the vortices coming out of the trailing edge tips were especially concentrated in the region between the upper wall of the freezer volume and the upper two drawers. In addition, a turbulent area was detected at the bottom of the evaporator cover (which is the fan suction area). As a result of the hybrid aeroacoustic model solution, the sound pressure data collected from 1 meter away from the front, rear and side surfaces of the freezer and the sound pressure data collected from the same locations in the full anechoic acoustic room were compared. When the total sound pressure in the range of 10-10000 Hz is compared, it is seen that there is a difference of 3-7 dBA between the numerical model and the experimental results. As a result of the investigations of the axial fan in the solo and freezer volume, three different freezer models have been proposed to improve air flow, reduce turbulence and reduce the resulting noise caused by air flow. In the fist suggested model, the bottom part of the evaporator cover has changed and the acostic propagation has decreased 0.24 dBA at 1200 rpm rotational speed. The position of the axial fan and its distance from the structures in the suction and discharge directions are the parameters affecting the acoustic propagation. In the second model, it is aimed to provide acoustic gain by changing the fan position. In this context, the fan was moved on the shaft by 5 mm and brought closer to the blowing region. With this modification, total sound power level was decreased 2.18 dBA. The final model is the superposition of the first two models. Here, it was aimed to see the combined effect of two mentioned model. At 1200 rpm rotational speed, 3.27 dBA gain was achived by the third model.