Conclusion
With the aid of the data gathered from the results and the entire
procedure itself, I have come to several generalizations concerning the topic
in general and the experimental procedure. First, I have familiarized myself
with the common terminologies used when operating fans and blowers. Fan
efficiency is the ratio between the power transferred to the air stream and the
power delivered by the motor to the fan. The power of the airflow is the
product of the pressure and the flow, corrected for unit consistency. Another
term for efficiency that is often used with fans is static efficiency, which uses
static pressure instead of total pressure in estimating the efficiency. Second, I
have learned the basic operating procedure and principle as well as the
efficiency of centrifugal fans. Lastly, I have learned that when evaluating fan
performance, it is important to know which efficiency term is being used. The fan efficiency depends on the type of fan and impeller. As the flow rate
increases, the efficiency increases to certain height and then decreases with
further increasing flow rate. As additional knowledge, I have also learned the
difference between a fan and compressor. Fans produce air flows with high
volume and low pressure (although higher than ambient pressure), as
opposed to compressors which produce high pressures at a comparatively
low volume. A fan blade will often rotate when exposed to an air stream, and
devices that take advantage of this, such as anemometers and wind turbines,
often have designs similar to that of a fan.