CO2 reduction through better fan / heat exchanger design

Completed

Energy Efficiency(Other)
Energy Efficiency(Residential and commercial)
Energy Efficiency(Industry)

Applied Research and Development

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Dr R Elder
PCA Engineers Ltd

3

Carbon Trust

01 January 2005

30 December 2006

23 months

£98,599

East Midlands

Dr R Elder, PCA Engineers Ltd

Project Contact, The London Fan Company Limited
Project Contact, Flakt Woods Limited.
Project Contact, York International Limited
Project Contact, ANSYS Europe Limited

The main technical objective is to reduce the motor power required to drive fans whilst maintaining or improving their effectiveness. Techniques based on computational fluid dynamics will be developed to enable fan power to be matched correctly to loads for forced cooling systems

Cooling fans are among the most common machines in use and vary in size from small units used for the cooling of electronic equipment to very large ones for industrial heat exchanger applications. The cooling they produce is essential to the operation or protection of a considerable range of plant/equipment. Fans are energy-intensive, mostly electrically driven, and their effectiveness (or packaged efficiency) is low. Improvements using conventional experimental methods have been difficult toachieve. The potential scope for energy savings is significant. They have been estimated to be equivalent to up to 2% of UK CO2 generation. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been exploited by the aerospace, power and other advanced industries and has much more to offer than conventional engineering development and design practices. In relation to fans, CFD methodologies have so far been used to study components such as fan blades but not to optimise cooling system performance. CFD canbe applied to improving the match between the fan and the cooling requirements. It can be used to study forced cooling systems in detail, including the fan, its installation, environment and the cooled surfaces. This project will investigate and quantify the benefits to be gained. It will enable equipment designers to apply the methodology quickly and efficiently to develop much more energy efficient solutions. It focuses on two important applications: fan/heat exchanger assemblies for industrial power systems; fan/heat exchanger assemblies for air conditioning plant primarily used in buildings

01/01/07