Design of miniature fan for industrial applications

The project investigates the use of a miniature fan to generate airflow within the confines of a volume of space at the base of a laptop. The limited volume of space is 600mm × 600mm × 60mm. In addition, a volume flow rate of 1.2 litre/s and a static pressure difference of 50 Pa are set as the objectives to be met. Two major stages are involved: the design stage and the performance stage. In the design stage, the functions required by the project are first examined to determine what components the product needs. Following that, various components that perform these functions are listed and described and these components are combined to form designs that satisfy all the functions that the product needs to have. These designs are then explained and compared against one another, and the screw fan is chosen as the best design. The performance stage used virtual and physical models to test for airflow rates and pressure differences. Computer aided design (CAD) software SolidWorks was used to draw the model and pre-processor, Gambit and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, Fluent was used to test whether the fan was able to produce the required flow rate and pressure difference.Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering