Industrial Fans - Design Paths

Design Paths

There are several paths to determining a fan design for an application.

For industries where the application requirements do not vary greatly and applicable fan designs have diameters of around 4 feet (1.2 meters) or less, a standard or pre-engineered design might be selected.

When the application involves more complex specifications or a larger fan, then a design based on an existing model configuration will often satisfy the requirements. Many model configurations already cover the range of current industry processes. An appropriate model from the fan company's catalogue is selected, and the company's engineers apply design rules to calculate the dimensions and select options and material for the desired performance, strength and operating environment.

Some applications require a dedicated, custom configuration for a fan design to satisfy all specifications.

All industrial fan designs must be accurately engineered to meet performance specifications while maintaining structural integrity. For each application, there are specific flow and pressure requirements. Depending on the application, the fan may be subject to high rotating speeds, an operating environment with corrosive chemicals or abrasive air streams, and extreme temperatures. Larger fans and higher speeds produce greater forces on the rotating structures; for safety and reliability, the design must eliminate excessive stresses and excitable resonant frequencies. Computer modeling programs for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis (FEA) are often employed in the design process, in addition to laboratory scale model testing. Even after the fan is built the verification might continue, using fan performance testing for flow and pressure, strain gage testing for stresses and tests to record the fan's resonant frequencies.