Fan Bank Enabling Reduced Fan Noise and Vibration

This application claims the priority benefit of Taiwan patent application number 113111300 filed on Mar. 26, 2024, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

The present invention relates to a fan bank, and more particularly, to a fan bank enabling reduced flow field interference at air outlets of the fan bank and reduced fan noise.

A thermal module plays an important role in the heat dissipation of currently popular electronic products such as computers, or electronic equipment such as servers or network communication equipment. Among others, electronic equipment, such as servers, would produce a large amount of heat during operation thereof. Usually, a plurality of fans is provided in the electronic equipment, so that airflows produced by the fans can effectively remove the heat accumulated in the electronic equipment.

Please refer to. A conventional fan bankincluding three fansof the same rotation direction arranged in one row is currently available in the market for mounting on the electronic equipment. That is, a middle one of the three fanshas its frameconnected at a left and a right side to the framesof the other two fanslocated at a left and a right side of the middle fan, respectively, so that the three fansare arrayed into one single row to form the fan bank. Further, these fans respectively have a plurality of blades, and the blades of the three fans extend in the same inclination direction and rotate in the same rotation direction. Although the one-row fan bankprovides the electronic equipment with necessary heat dissipation, it brings another problem to the fan operation. That is, the fansin the fan bankrespectively have an impeller, and all the impellers of the fansin the fan bankrotate in the same direction such as in a clockwise direction. In this manner, airflows produced by these fansalso have the same flowing direction. However, the airflows of any two laterally connected fansare opposite in their flowing directions when the airflows flow through a space located between the framesof the two adjoining fans. For example, the airflow produced by the middle fanflowing clockwise flows upward when the airflow passes through the left side of the frameof the middle fan. Meanwhile, the airflow produced by the left fanflowing clockwise flows downward when the airflow passes through the right side of the frameof the left fan. As a result, the airflows produced by the middle and left fanswill collide with each other when they meet at the space between their frames. Similarly, the airflow of the middle fanflows downward when the airflow passes through the right side of the frameof the middle fan, while the airflow of the right fanflows upward when the airflow passes the left side of the frameof the right fan, causing the two airflows to collide with each other. The collision of two airflows would result in spoiler. And, when the multiple fansare arranged side by side to produce airflows of the same rotation direction, noise and vibration produced when the fansrotate will be enlarged and the airflows at air outlets of the fanswill interfere with one another to further increase the fan noise.

It is therefore tried by the inventor to develop an improved fan bank, which enables reduced flow field interference at air outlets of fans and reduced fan noise to overcome the problems and disadvantages in the prior art fan bank.

To effectively resolve the above problems, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a fan bank that enables reduced flow field interference at air outlets of fans and reduced fan noise.

To achieve the above and other objects, the fan bank according to the present invention includes a plurality of fans, which are arrayed to form a matrix including columns and rows. Every fan in the fan bank has an impeller rotation direction different from that of other fans that are located vertically and horizontally adjoining thereto. Further, the fans in the fan bank having the same impeller rotation direction are located diagonally to each other.

In the present invention, the fan bank is in the form of a matrix consisting of multiple columns and rows of fans having different rotation directions. That is, any fan in the fan bank has an impeller rotation direction opposite to the impeller rotation direction of other fans located vertically and horizontally adjoining thereto. With this arrangement, flow fields at air outlets of the fans do not interfere with one another to avoid enlarged noise and vibration that would otherwise occur in the case the adjoining fans in the fan bank have the same rotation direction. Therefore, the fan bank of the present invention can effectively achieve the effect of reduced noise and vibration of the fans.

The present invention will now be described with some preferred embodiments thereof. For the purpose of easy to understand, elements that are the same in the preferred embodiments are denoted by the same reference numerals.

The present invention relates to a fan bank. As can be seen in, the fan bankis designed for mounting in an electronic product such as a computer, or in electronic equipment such as servers or network communication equipment. The fan bankincludes a plurality of fans that rotate in different directions. Each of the fans includes a frame, an impellerhaving a plurality of blades, and a statorconsisting of a plurality of silicon steel laminations. The framehas two opposite sides being an air inletand an air outlet, respectively, and an airflow passagedefined between the air inletand the air outlet. A shaft baseis located at a central portion of the air outlet, and a shaft barrelis projected forward from the shaft base. The statoris fitted on around an outer side of the shaft barrel, and the impelleris rotatably connected to the shaft barrelto cover the stator, such that a magnetic element, for example a magnet, disposed inside of the impelleris inductively excited by the stator.

Any two fans in the fan banklocated horizontally or vertically adjoining to one another have their impellers rotating in two opposite directions, and any two fans in the fan banklocated diagonally to each other have their impellers rotating in the same direction. The fans in the fan bankare arranged into a matrix having a plurality of vertical columns and a plurality of horizontal rows. In the illustrated first embodiment as shown in, the fan bankincludes two positive fansand two negative fansThat is, there are two diagonally located positive fansand two diagonally located negative fanswhich together form a fan bankof 2×2-matrix, in which each of the positive fansis located horizontally and vertically adjoining to a negative fanPlease refer to, the framesof the two negative fanslocated at the upper left and the lower right corner are connected to the frameof the other two positive fanslocated at the upper right and the lower left corner to form the 2×2-matrix of the fan bank.

The air inletsof the fans are located at the same side of the frames, and the air outletsof the fans are also located at the same opposite side of the frames. Further, the bladeson the impellersof the positive fansare inclined in a direction opposite to that of the bladeson the impellersof the negative fansAlso, the impellersof two adjoining positive and negative fansrotate in two opposite directions.

When the fan bankoperates, the impellersof the two positive fansrotate in a clockwise direction R, and the impellersof the two negative fansrotate in a counterclockwise direction R, such that airflows existing in positions at where the frameof every positive fanis in contact with the framesof the two vertically and horizontally adjoining negative fansflow in the same direction. Therefore, an air flowing direction at the air outletof every positive fanis the same as an air flowing direction at the air outletsof the two vertically and horizontally adjoining negative fansWith these arrangements, outward flow fields of all fans in the fan bankdo not interfere with one another to achieve the effect of reduced noise. In the fan bankaccording to the first embodiment of the present invention that consists of two positive fansand two negative fansto form a 2×2-matrix, the produced noise is 97.3 dB. Compared to the noise of 100 dB produced by a prior art one-row fan bank consisting of four positive fans, the noise produced by the fan bankof the present invention obviously decreases by 3.2 dB.

It is understood the fan bankof the present invention is not limited to the above 2×2-matrix consisting of two positive fansand two negative fansIn an alternative embodiment, the fan bankis to be installed in an electronic product such as a computer or in electronic equipment such as servers or network communication equipment and can be designed according an actual heat dissipation requirement of the electronic product or equipment to include more positive fansand negative fansto form a matrix having more columns and more rows. For instance, in a second embodiment as shown in, the fan bankincludes four positive fansand four negative fansto form a matrix having two columns and four rows; or in a third embodiment as shown in, the fan bankincludes three positive fansand three negative fansto form a matrix having 3 columns and 3 rows; etc.

In the present invention, the fan bankis in the form of a matrix consisting of multiple columns and rows of fans having different rotation directions, such that any two adjoining fans in the fan bankrotate in two opposite directions. With this arrangement, the noise and vibration produced by the fans of the fan bankduring operation can be effectively reduced instead of being enlarged.

The present invention has been described with some preferred embodiments thereof and it is understood that many changes and modifications in the described embodiments can be carried out without departing from the scope and the spirit of the invention that is intended to be limited only by the appended claims.