Will this centrifugal fan design work?

blainiac

Hello everyone.

I am working on a VTOL RC craft that I hope will work. I was planning on using a centrifugal fan to accelerate air radially (instead of a squirrel-cage design), and putting 45 degree truncated cones around it to direct it downwards. I wrote a program with many small particles accelerating outward from a 'fan', and they bounced as predicted off the shrouds. I was just wondering if you think this would work in real life.

I was thinking if the fan blades were at a pretty large distance and tall, it could move quite a bit of air. With a larger diameter, it wouldn't need to spin as quickly as a smaller unit.

I was going to build this using a chainsaw engine to move two centrifugal fans (only one is shown in the drawings), and make truncated cones from plastic. I was wondering if anybody had any advice or input for this. I was also wondering if anyone knew any useful formulas to aid in the design process.

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AlephZero

Sure. You just reinvented this (see the bottom of the page).
http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/212_fall...len/Page4.html

blainiac

Thank you for your reply. I read the link provided, very interesting stuff. So basically this is the initial part of a jet engine, minus the combustion chamber and turbine? I wonder if it would work well still to fly with just the 'compressor'.