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Blade solidity

For blade conguration in general, see airfoil. For 1 Flow over isolated airfoil
how it is linked to turbomachinery application, see
Turbomachinery.
Blade solidity is an important parameter that inter relates turbomachine parameter to airfoil parameter .Lift
Blade solidity is an important design parameter for the and drag coecient for an airfoil is inter related to blade
axial ow impeller and is dened as the ratio of blade solidity as shown :
chord length to pitch.
CL = 2(s/c)(tan 1 tan 2 )cosm
angle of attack

chord line
camber line

Cd =

upper surface

relative wind

(s) (
c

p0
W12 /2

leading edge
max. thickness
max. camber

where

lower surface
trailing edge

CL is lift coecient
Airfoil nomenclature

Cd is the drag coecient


Blade Solidity = c/s

1 is the inlet ow angle on the airfoil

Where

2 is the outlet ow angle on the airfoil

s = 2rm /Zb

m is the mean ow angle

rm is the mean radius

W1 is inlet ow velocity i.e relative to airfoil

Zb is blade number

Wm is mean ow velocity

Chord length c is the length of the chord line

p0 is the pressure loss

s is pitch

tan m = 12 (tan 1 + tan 2 )


In case of an axial ow impeller mean radius is dened in
terms of hub ( rh ,inner radius) and tip radius ( rt ,outer
radius) as :
In an airfoil the mean line curvature is designed to change
the ow direction ,the vane thickness is for strength and
0.5
2
2
the streamlined shape is to delay the onset of boundary
rm = [(rt + rh )/2]
layer separation, taking all the design factors of an airfoil
resulting forces of lift and drag can be expressed in terms
Blade solidity aects various turbomachinery parame- of lift and drag coecient.
ters. So to vary those parameters one needs to vary blade
solidity but there are some limitations imposed by Aspect
(
)
2
ratio (wing) (span/chord), pitch. If an impeller has few
FL = CL bc 12 Wm
blades i.e high pitch it will result in less lift force and in a
(
)
2
similar manner for more blades i.e. very low pitch, there
Fd = Cd bc 21 Wm
will be high drag force.
Blade solidity should not be confused with rotor solidity,
which is the ratio of the total area of the rotor blades to
the swept area of the rotor.

b is the wingspan
c is the chord length
1

Preliminary design procedure

Design of the impeller depends on specic speed, hub-tip


ratio and solidity ratio. To illustrate the dependence, an
expression for axial ow pump and fan is shown

c
10
=
s
(Dh /Dt )(Ns /1000)1.5
where

Dh
Dt

is ratio of hub to tip diameter

Ns is the specic speed


Cordier diagram can be used to determine specic speed
and impeller tip diameter Dt . Accordingly solidity ratio
and hub-tip ratio (range 0.3-0.7) can be adjusted.
Solidity ratio generally falls in the range of 0.4-1.1

See also
Aerodynamics
Turbomachinery
Axial-ow pump
Mechanical fan
Compressors
Autorotation_(helicopter)

References
Peng, William W. (2008), Fundamentals of Turbomachinery, Wiley, ISBN 978-0-470-12422-2
Venkanna, B.K. (2009), Fundamentals of Turbomachinery, PHI learning private limited, ISBN 978-81203-3775-6
Turton, R.K. (1995), Principles of turbomachinery,
Springer (New Delhi), ISBN 8184896042
Rama, S.R. Gorla (2003), Turbomachinery Design
and Theory, Marcel Dekker ,Inc., ISBN 0-82470980-2
Yahya, S.M. (2002), Turbines, compressors and
fans, TMH, ISBN 0070707022

REFERENCES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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Text

Blade solidity Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_solidity?oldid=724916306 Contributors: BenFrantzDale, R'n'B, Niceguyedc,


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