Experimental Evaluation of Turbine Ventilators Performance under Different Test Conditions

Department of Building Energetics, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Vilnius, Lithuania

Abstract

One of the most popular wind driven ventilation devices is a turbine ventilator. Its main construction components usually are air suction duct and impeller. However, there are many different configurations of such devices – different shape of vanes and ratios between main dimensions. In order to develop turbine ventilators there is demand for deeper fundamental researches. Major part of previous experimental investigations compares turbine ventilators performance. The aim of presented experimental investigation is to understand key parameters affecting wind driven ventilators performance. For this purpose, straight and curved vane devices under 4 different test conditions are tested. All tests are performed in modified wind tunnel based on the following methodology: 1) testing devices under normal operation conditions; 2) testing without impeller; 3) testing while impeller is stopped; 4) testing while air suction duct is sealed. Experimental results have shown that the biggest part of extracted air flow rate is impacted due to ejection of wind and air suction duct interaction process. A slight increase in performance of turbine ventilators compared to open duct column has been confirmed. Experiments also revealed differences between tested turbine ventilators rotational speed trends. Presented empirical equations of experiments could be used for design of turbine ventilators or other researches purposes.