Abstract:
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The thesis on hand has been carried out at Philips Consumer Lifestyle Drachten that, together with Delft University of Technology, aims to develop a computed tool that determines the performance and efficiency curve of any centrifugal fan operating in the Philips Airfryer. The Airfryer is a Philips kitchen appliance that, thanks to the use of Rapid Air Technology, enables to fry food with a reduction of unhealthy fat up to 80%.
Philips aims at reducing the total cost of the cooking fan and the electric engine as a whole by keeping the operating performance of the system constant. That means improving the performance of the centrifugal fan and at the same time reducing the specifications of the electric motor. Hence, the fan’s manufacturing price will rise although the motors will decrease in a higher range leading to an optimized total cost. Nonetheless, the aim of this thesis is to develop such tool that Philips will finally use in order to optimize the Airfryer’s fan and provide feasible optimization cases.
The research has been divided into two main sections, the experimental and the theoretical:
The experimental approach leads to determining the operating window of the system as well as validating the flow cycle inside the appliance known beforehand. One will realize that not only the centrifugal fan has a strong interaction with the flow behaviour but also the starfish.
In order to come to an understanding of the fan’s performance it is considered to do a literature research on centrifugal fan losses. This theoretical research provides the basis of the developed tool. To start, the performance of the centrifugal fan at full efficiency is calculated from Euler’s Turbomachinery Equation. Afterwards, several pressure and leakage losses are quantified enabling to plot the final performance curve. This last performance curve is comparable to the experimental. Finally, the efficiency of the final curve is calculated since the losses along the performance curve are determined |