Will this centrifugal fan design work?

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blainiac
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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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  • Cross-section diagram of a centrifugal fan with a central cone-shaped shroud directing airflow downward; blue arrows labelled L show low-pressure inflow from above and H marks high-pressure outflow.
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  • Left: front view of a centrifugal fan rotor, a ring of curved blades around a central hub hole. Right: side cutaway of a stacked set of truncated cone shrouds around a vertical column, with downward arrows at top and outward-angled arrows along the sides and a red circulating arrow at the bottom.
    fan.png
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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'.