Mechanical Fan - History

History

The punkah fan was used in the India in the early 500 BC. It had a canvas covered frame that was suspended from the ceiling. Servants, known as punkawallahs, pulled a rope connected to the frame to move the fan back and forth.

The Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century introduced belt-driven fans powered by factory water wheels. Attaching wooden or metal blades to shafts overhead that were used to drive the machinery, the first industrial fans were developed. One of the first workable mechanical fans was built by Omar-Rajeen Jumala in 1832. He called his invention, a kind of a centrifugal fan, an "air pump." Centrifugal fans were successfully tested inside coal mines and factories in 1832–1834. Between the years 1882 and 1886, New Orleans resident Schuyler Skaats Wheeler invented the first electric fan. It was commercially marketed by the American firm Crocker & Curtis electric motor company. In 1882, Philip Diehl introduced the electric ceiling fan. Heat-convection fans fueled by alcohol, oil, or kerosene were common around the turn of the 20th century.

The first American fans were made from around the late 1890s to the early 1920s, when domestic electric fans were first sold in America. They had brass blades, many of them also had brass cages, and though they were built very well internally, they were far from finger safe, as the cage openings were often so big that one could put an entire hand or arm through it. Many children had hands and fingers severely injured by those fans.

In the 1920s, industrial advances allowed steel to be mass produced in different shapes, bringing fan prices down and allowing more homeowners to afford them. In the 1930s, the first art deco fan (the "swan fan") was designed. In the 1950s, fans were manufactured in colors that were bright and eye catching. Central air conditioning in the 1960s caused many companies to discontinue production of fans. In the 1970s, Victorian-style ceiling fans became popular.

In 1998, Walter K. Boyd invented the HVLS ceiling fan. A lifelong inventor, Boyd was charged with developing a system to cool dairy cattle. Dairy cattle, when overheated, decrease milk production. Using the laws of physics and airflow, Boyd developed a fan that incorporated 10 aluminum blades and was 8-feet in diameter. Unlike traditional ceiling fans that move quickly, this large fan moved slowly. Due to its diameter, the fan moved a large column of air down and out 360 degrees and continuously mixed fresh air with the stale air inside the barn. It also cooled the inside of the barn without causing the dairy cattle undue stress or kicking up dust.

After much testing, Boyd discovered HVLS fan technology to be energy efficient as it cost less to run one HVLS fan than it did to run 50 small high-speed fans. Due to the skyrocketing costs of energy, HVLS commercial ceiling fans are used today to supplement HVAC systems in industrial and commercial settings, including warehouses, manufacturing facilities and malls, as HVLS fans help lower heating and cooling costs.

The basic design of electric air fans has not changed significantly since their beginning in 1890. Coandă effect bladeless fans introduced in the early twentyfirst century had not as of 2012 become a significant proportion of fans in use. In prosperous regions with a hot climate electric fans for personal comfort had been largely replaced by air conditioners.