How to reduce fan noise - no silencers, higher efficiency
Channel: Industrial Noise and Vibration Centre (INVC)
Date: 2013-06-16

Award-winning Quiet Fan technology is a low-cost alternative to silencers that often pays for itself due to increased fan efficiency (by up to 23% in one case) - see https://invc.com/noise-control/fan-noise-reduction. The traditional approach is to try to contain the noise by fitting attenuators/mufflers. And acoustic lagging. And enclosures. This can be eye-wateringly expensive in terms of capital, the cost of extended down-time required to fit the package plus increased downstream maintenance costs. Costs that can be dwarfed by increased running costs due to reduced fan efficiency.

We take a more fundamental approach to the problem. Why not prevent the generation of the noise in the first place? Fan noise is created by turbulence (wasted energy) and pressure fluctuations inside the fan casing. In a similar approach to the way that Formula 1 engineers develop aerodynamic aids to control the airflow round their cars, we developed fan noise attenuation technology that is based on designing aerodynamic inserts that are fitted inside and around fan volutes (centrifugal or axial) to reduce the pressure pulsations responsible for the noise (see https://youtu.be/TPTCa-T88YY). These aerodynamic aids reduce fan tones at source, typically by 90-99.5% (10-23dB).

Capital costs are typically 50% - 80% lower. Downtime is all but eliminated. Running costs are reduced. Fit and forget with zero maintenance for the life of the fan. Stealth and efficiency...

Applications for this fan noise reduction technology include industrial fans and blowers of all types, chillers, HVAC and AHUs  (https://invc.com/noise-control/chiller-noise-reduction/); cooling tower noise (https://invc.com/noise-control/cooling-tower-noise-control/); data centre (or in the USA, data center) fans and many others.

Could you make use of our fan noise attenuation technology? In most cases, all we need are a few photos and a couple of smartphone video clips by email for analysis for us to evaluate whether it is applicable and what the cost would be. This is a free "remote control" service (https://invc.com/noise-control/remote-noise-control-by-email) that we provide for fans anywhere in the world. A previous user saved $1 million on a $1.25 million fan noise project.

Contact us to check your options - https://invc.com/contact/