Numerical and Experimental Investigation on Centrifugal Cooling Fan in a Traction Motor

High-speed train is developing popular in China, which provides the convenient and fast transportation way, comparable to plane. The moving direction and speed of high-speed train is decided by the traction motor. Generally, a coaxial centrifugal fan is used to cool the motor and assemble in the motor casing. To ensure the reliability of the traction motor, more and more attention is paid to improve the performance of cooling fans in a wide range of rotating speed. As the train is designed to move in both directions, the traction motor is designed to rotate in both directions, so does the coaxial motor cooling fan. Symmetrical and straight blade structure is adopted to get the same performance of the fan in both forward and reverse moving directions. Therefore, the aerodynamic performance of the cooling fan is relatively not good enough, which results in relatively high aerodynamic noise. In order to analyze the cooling fan aerodynamic performance and aerodynamic noise, CFD method was performed on the full 3D model with the impeller-casing clearance. The acoustic analogy method was used to analyze the noise of the centrifugal cooling fan. In addition, the aerodynamic noise of the motor with the cooling fan was tested at different rotating speed in the semi-anechoic lab. The CFD method is verified and the results are in good agreement with the experimental results. The results show that it is necessary to consider the effects of impeller-casing leakage and the vacuum inlet condition in the simulated model to get its more accurate performance. Modified CFD model of the cooling fan was proposed here. It is suggested that the modified structure of the casing can be used to improve the performance of the cooling fan and reduce the corresponding aerodynamic noise.