The question about how to get a quote for an industrial blower comes up more often than you might think. The first trick is to also search for how to get a quote for an industrial fan. Same product, different function. A blower is just a forced draft fan that sucks air in to push it through the system instead of induced draft pulling it through the system. See “related content” below to find more details and insights on that nuance.
There’s more to a centrifugal fan than blade structure (versus axial) and function (to move process air and other materials as part of a larger system). Centrifugal fan airflow is at the core of how it works.
Industrial fan fires are unlikely, but they can create sparks that can cause fires if you’re not careful. What causes sparks in industrial fans? The answer to that question is moving parts and ferrous materials.
There was no “business as usual” this spring. But “business as unusual” looked very different depending on your vantage point. For us, it meant finding a way to keep our employees safe and healthy while maintaining our standards of quality, reliability, and on-time delivery throughout the global pandemic. On top of all that and in the midst of a record-breaking production schedule, we had the opportunity to expedite fans for another essential business: emergency medical mask production.
In the world of centrifugal fans and blowers for industrial process applications, “what’s the difference between a fan and a blower” is a trick question. That’s because there actually is no difference at all. That’s right. Whether you need an industrial fan or blower for your operation, the product designs are the same.
Fan static efficiency is the measure of the airstream’s potential, or optimal energy consumption, as determined by the ratio of power output to the power supplied.
Which industrial fan type do you need in your process to achieve both optimal static efficiency and reliable operation? Considerations include what the fan is processing from clean air to mild particulate to highly abrasive materials, as well as volume and static pressure. Once you know those variables, you can make the fan static efficiency calculation to select the right fan.
If you’ve ever seen, heard or felt a pressurized industrial fan pulsing, you’ve probably also seen how damaging the resulting vibrations can be. Surgeless fan design moderates volume to avoid that costly scenario.
Controlling fan speed for optimal efficiency and performance is as easy as having the right equipment and making a few simple calculations. The ability to control fan speed rests on your motor drive. On direct-driven fan applications, the most common way to change speeds is with a variable frequency drive (VFD). On belt-driven fan applications, a VFD is also useful for simple speed changes. In the absence of a VFD, simple sheave ratio modifications should do the trick. And of course, you need to know the input frequency of the motor and a few simple ratios.
People always want to know about process fans, but it’s really all about process air. The term “process air” means air movement needed in an existing or new process to produce something else such as paper or chemicals. It’s a required element at some point in many industrial production operations.
If you work with a manufacturer that builds high-quality products, do a great job with the installation, and prioritize regular fan and blower maintenance, your industrial fan could last as long as 50 years. So what does all that mean? We break it down below and in Chet’s latest video.
Before we dive into HOW to balance an industrial fan, we should start with WHY. The answer is that the better we balance the wheel in a two-plane balance setup in the shop, the better it’s going to be when we put it into the complete fan assembly, run it up to full speed and trim balance it. And of course, ultimately, fan balance is essential to fan performance, safety, and maintenance.
Balance quality grades are among the more than 20,000 standards published by the International Standards Organization (ISO). These standards serve as generally accepted specifications for products, services, and systems, to ensure quality, safety, and efficiency.
The fan performance curve shows the pressure and flow rate that the fan will produce for any system connected to it. The actual fan performance is dependent upon the detailed design of each system. System designers calculate process air requirements, and the fan application engineer selects fans to meet those requirements, which are graphically represented by a fan curve.
