Cooling Fan Blade Ring Layout for Lower Noise and Smaller Diameter
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional cooling fans with ring members on blade tips become heavier and noisier due to thinner blades, and their larger diameter reduces versatility.
Innovation Solution
A cooling fan design where the ring member is positioned radially inner from the blade tips, allowing for varying blade thickness, reducing the fan's diameter, and enhancing strength and noise suppression by supporting blades differently on either side of the ring member.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Weight of moving object
If the blade thickness is reduced to make the blade lighter, then the weight is reduced, but the blade becomes more prone to flapping and noise increases
Solution Approach 1:
The blade is designed with non-uniform thickness distribution, where the thickness varies along the radial direction. The blade is thinner at the root portion and thicker at the tip portion, creating optimal strength characteristics while minimizing weight. This local quality variation allows the blade to be lighter overall while maintaining sufficient strength to prevent flapping and reduce noise during rotation.
2Strength
If a ring member is provided on the blade tips to improve blade strength, then the blade strength is improved, but the fan diameter increases and versatility decreases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of adding a ring member in the radial direction (which would increase fan diameter), the invention strengthens the blade by varying its thickness along the radial dimension. The blade itself is designed with optimized thickness distribution, eliminating the need for additional ring members and maintaining a compact fan diameter that preserves versatility.
3Strength
If a ring member is provided on the blade tips, then the blade strength is improved, but the manufacturing cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts and eliminates the ring member component entirely by incorporating its strengthening function directly into the blade structure through optimized thickness distribution. This integration removes the need for separate ring members, simplifying the manufacturing process and reducing costs while maintaining blade strength.
Data Source
AI summary
A cooling fan of the present invention includes: a bottomed cylindrical boss portion; and a plurality of blades provided on an outer circumferential surface of the boss portion, the blades radiating in a radial direction, in which a ring member for connecting the blades with each other is provided on a side radially inner from tips of the blades. According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a cooling fan capable of preventing the worsening of the noise characteristic and also of enhancing the versatility even if the blades are made thinner.