Axial Flow Fans Review

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Axial Flow Fans Review

Axial flow fans (also called electronic cooling fans) are characterized by the working fluid (air) that principally flows parallel to the axis of rotation of the fan blades. In contrast with centrifugal, axi-centrifugal and mixed-flow fans where the fluid air may enter axially however will have a significant radial or tangential vector on exit.

Axial Flow Fan

Axial flow fans are used to produce a continuous flow of air to remove heat energy from systems, typically electronic. Typical applications include computers, power supplies and associated electronic components and assemblies.

Axial flow fans are available in a variety of mounting and packaging applications. Axial flow fans used in computer application are typically of the case mount (see picture to the left) configuration. These fans are used to cool the following components: PSU, CPU, Graphics card, mother board, power supply, and disk or CD (DVD) drives.

The mounting configurations are typically indicated in millimeters, and the most common sizes used with computer electronics are 60mm, 80mm, 92mm, and 120mm. Axial flow fans are rated in revolutions per minute (rpm's) and cubic-feet per minute (CFM). Additional performance specifications are: noise given in decibels (dB).