Patent Grant
9039393
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to portable electronic products, and more particularly, to blowers or fans particularly suitable for use in air cooling systems of portable electronic products.
2. Description of the Related Art
Axial and centrifugal fans or blowers are typically implemented in cooling systems of electronic devices to assist in cooling down the electronic devices when they become too hot. Typical fan design includes impellers that have blades spaced at equal angles relative to one another. The evenly spaced fan blades allow the impeller to be balanced. When fan blades are not spaced evenly, the impeller can have acoustic artifacts, imbalance problems, and thermal penalties. Imbalance may lead to increased vibratory stress, wear on the bearing and motor structure of the fan, and quality issues.
Typically, the noise sources of a fan are the air flow and from the motor. One of the flow-induced noise sources is the blade passage frequency (BPF) tone. The BPF and related harmonics are related to pressure disturbances produced when each fan blade passes a fixed reference point. The blade tip creates a periodic pressure wave, which creates a tone.
The major motor noise source is the pole passage frequency (PPF) tone. The PPF is the vibration and resulting pressure waves created by the poles in the motor of the fan. The BPF will usually be perceived as a tone, and can be amplified if it coincides with the PPF. The BPF and PPF tones emanate from a blower or fan, and when audible, can be annoying to the user of the product containing that blower or fan. Another source of noise is from interaction with struts or any other kind of obstruction on the fan. Thus, an adequately balanced fan with reduced noise is desired.
Broadly speaking, the embodiments disclosed herein describe non-uniform blade spacing with acceptable balance in a centrifugal blower and implementation of the centrifugal blower into portable electronic products.
A centrifugal blower is described. The centrifugal blower includes at least a motor having a number of pole passes, wherein the number of pole passes is an even number and thirty one blades each of which is associated with a nominal blade angle having a nominal blade angle value, the nominal blade angle value being an angular displacement between adjacent impeller blades. The thirty one impeller blades are each spaced asymmetrically about a central hub such that each impeller blade position about the central hub such that a summation of the nominal blade angle values is equal to 360° and an operating characteristic value of the centrifugal blower is deemed to be within a pre-determined range of operating characteristic values. In the described embodiment, a first nominal blade angle value is 10.1034°, a second nominal blade angle value is 10.0229°; a third nominal blade angle value is 13.1577°; a fourth nominal blade angle value is 13.2029°; a fifth nominal blade angle value is 13.6692°; a sixth nominal blade angle value is 13.0442°; a seventh nominal blade angle value is 13.5653°; an eighth nominal blade angle value is 11.9834°; a ninth nominal blade angle value is 11.6129°; a tenth nominal blade angle value is 10.1071°; an eleventh nominal blade angle value is 11.2424°; a twelfth nominal blade angle value is 10.1532°; a thirteenth nominal blade angle value is 10.1816°; a fourteenth nominal blade angle value is 9.7922°; a fifteenth nominal blade angle value is 13.4336°; a sixteenth nominal blade angle value is 13.6681°; a seventeenth nominal blade angle value is 12.6063°; an eighteenth nominal blade angle value is 9.5578°; a nineteenth nominal blade angle value is 10.0681°; a twentieth nominal blade angle value is 10.7533°; a twenty-first nominal blade angle value is 11.1850°; a twenty-second nominal blade angle value is 13.5670°; a twenty-third nominal blade angle value is 12.4725°; a twenty-fourth nominal blade angle value is 13.1224°; a twenty-fifth nominal blade angle value is 13.0726°; a twenty-sixth nominal blade angle value is 13.1187°; a twenty-seventh nominal blade angle value is 12.0408°; a twenty-eighth nominal blade angle value is 10.6195°; a twenty-ninth nominal blade angle value is 9.5566°; a thirtieth nominal blade angle value is 9.6588°; and a thirty-first nominal blade angle value is 9.6605°.
In one aspect of the described embodiment, the blade angles each have a tolerance of +/−5%.
Other aspects and advantages will become apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings which illustrate, by way of example, the principles of the invention.
The described embodiments will be readily understood by the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals designate like structural elements, and in which:
The described embodiments relate to a centrifugal fan or blower that can be implemented in a cooling system of a portable electronic device, such as a laptop computer. It is to be understood that the described embodiments can also be used in other non-portable electronic devices, such as desktop computers. The centrifugal fans or blowers in the described embodiments provide air cooling for a portable electronic device while the perceived sound emanating from the fan is decreased when compared to conventional fans.
Embodiments are discussed below with reference to
As discussed above, typical fan design includes impellers that have uniform blade spacing. That is, the blades 110 of an impeller 100 are spaced at equal angles A, B, C relative to one another, as shown in
One method of minimizing noise from a fan is to control the spectral distribution of pure tones generated by the fan. Dispersing the energy of a tone over a number of discrete frequencies can make the tone seem less noisy to the listener by reducing the perception on the tonal BPF. Spacing fan blades unevenly, while maintaining impeller balance, is one method of controlling pure-tone effects.
θi′=+Δθ sin(mθi)
where θi is the original spacing angle of the ith blade in an evenly spaced arrangement, θi′ is the new spacing angle of the ith nominal blade angle after modification, Δθ is the maximum percentage of spacing angle change (the modulation amplitude), and m is the number of sinusoidal patterns to be used (the number of times the modulation cycle is repeated in a single revolution of the fan). It will be understood that the equation set forth above can be applied to larger fans, such as axial fans, which can be balanced by adding weights in strategic places on the impeller.
The noise resulting from this sinusoidal modulation is represented by the following equation:
f(t)=A0 sin(2πF0t+Δφ sin 2πνt),
where A0 is the amplitude of the fundamental blade passing tone, F0=Ifs (I is the number of blades and fs is the shaft rotational frequency), the modulation frequency ν=mfs, and the phase-modulation amplitude Δφ=IΔθ.
The basilar membrane in the human ear has the function of dispersing the frequency of incoming sound waves. The dispersion of the frequency of sound waves causes sound of a certain frequency to vibrate some locations of the basilar membrane more than others.
In conventional fans, the impeller blades are uniformly spaced to achieve balance. The uniform spacing also provides a constant BPF tone frequency over time when the fan is spinning. When the blades are not spaced uniformly, imbalance may occur and the BPF tone frequency is not constant over time when the fan is spinning. For large fans, weights may be attached in strategic places on certain fan blades for balance. However, weights cannot be used in an efficient manner for small fans, such as those used in portable devices. To achieve acceptable balance in such small fans with non-uniformly spaced blades, balance must be inherent in the design of the fan itself. The embodiments described herein are designed such that the fans are balanced even though the blades are not uniformly spaced about a central hub or shaft of the impeller, and the BPF tone frequency remains constant over time, thereby reducing the noise emanating from the fan. In some embodiments, the blower has a diameter of 150 cm or less.
According to an embodiment, the centrifugal blower has at least 15 impeller blades 210 non-uniformly spaced about and extending out from a central hub or impeller shaft 220. That is, the blades 210 are not evenly spaced apart from one another. To reduce the fan noise, the number of impeller blades 210 is selected to be different from the number of pole passes in the motor 230 to avoid having the harmonics of the blades 210 and the harmonics of the poles merge. If the harmonics of the poles and the harmonics of the blades 210 merge, the BPF and PPF tones are increased, resulting in increased noise emanating from the fan. Consequently, if the harmonics of the poles and blades are not lined up, the perceived noise coming from the fan will be reduced. It will be understood that if there are multiple noise sources in a fan, the noise sources should not line up in order to minimize the noise.
Although the blades 210 are not uniformly spaced, the impeller 200 is still able to maintain acceptable balance when spinning. The angle D, E, F of each of the spaces between the non-uniformly spaced impeller blades is determined by the positions of the blades 210. As shown in
θi′=θi+θi*α*cos(mx)
where θi is the original spacing angle of uniformly spaced blades (number of blades/360°), θi′ is the new spacing angle of the ith nominal blade angle after modification in a non-uniform spacing arrangement, a is related to the maximum percentage of spacing angle change (the modulation amplitude Δθ), m is the number of sinusoidal patterns to be used (the number of times the modulation cycle is repeated in a single revolution of the fan), and 0≦x≦2π.
As discussed above, the fan has at least 15 impeller blades. According to an embodiment, there are 17 impeller blades non-uniformly spaced about the central hub. In another embodiment, there are 23 non-uniformly spaced impeller blades. In some embodiments, the impeller has 29 blades or fewer. If there are too few blades, unwanted modulation artifacts can be introduced, thereby boosting the noise emanating from the fan, as shown in
As discussed above, the position of each of the impeller blades 210 about the central hub 220 corresponds to a unique point on at least two repeating sinusoidal patterns. At least two repeating sinusoidal patterns are used to maintain balance. According to an embodiment, an even number of repeating sinusoidal patterns is used. That is, the blades 210 are spaced according to an even number of sinusoidal patterns. In an embodiment with a single fan, two repeating sinusoidal patterns are used. In certain embodiments, four repeating sinusoidal patterns are used. The skilled artisan will appreciate that, in some embodiments, more than one fan is implemented in the device and that two or four repeating sinusoidal patterns are used. Preferably, no more than four repeating sinusoidal patterns are used. Thus, it is particularly effective when 2≦m≦4. The skilled artisan will appreciate that the cosine in the equation may be replaced with sine, using the following equation:
θi′=θi+θi*α*sin(mx)
In an embodiment, the variable a, which is related to the maximum percentage of spacing angle change, is particularly effective when kept in a range of about 0.01 to about 0.07. According to another embodiment, a is in a range of about 0.01 to about 0.05. If α is too large, low frequency modulation can be perceived. If α is too small, there may be no perceived reduction in tone. Similarly, the percentage of spacing change from the evenly spaced arrangement is particularly effective in a range of about 1 percent to about 7 percent. That is, each of the blade positions is modified by about 1 percent to about 7 percent compared to evenly spaced impeller blades of an impeller having the same number of impeller blades. The number of sinusoidal patters to be used, m, should equal two when a single fan is used in a system.
According to another embodiment, the centrifugal blower has a prime number of impeller blades that are spaced apart in a non-uniform manner about a central hub. As discussed above, a prime number of blades prevents the harmonics of the blades and the harmonics of the poles from lining up or merging. As the pole pass is typically an even number, selecting the number of impeller blades to be equal to a prime number prevents the BPF tone from merging with the PPF tone.
The number of blades needed and the frequency range that has the largest BPF tone can determine the percentage of variability in the spacing among the blades. The higher the frequency of interest, the more effective the variation is in reducing the perceived tone without introducing other artifacts. The blade passage frequency (BPF) is modulated in frequency and is perceived as less annoying or less strong to the user. The average energy in a small frequency step is reduced, but the modulation must be small enough to not allow perceived low frequency artifacts.
It should be noted that a thin profile has been found to be aesthetically pleasing to a large number of users and is therefore a desirable industrial design consideration in the manufacture of portable electronic devices, such as laptop computers. The centrifugal blowers in the described embodiments can be manufactured in a smaller size as compared to conventional fans. Thus, smaller blowers implemented in portable devices allow the portable devices to have a thin profile. The skilled artisan will appreciate that the embodiments described herein may also be applied to axial fans, which can have a larger size.
Asymmetric Blade Spacing Embodiments
In one embodiment, the centrifugal blower can include thirty-one (31) blades having blade angle value in accordance with Table 1 described in
The advantages of the invention are numerous. Different aspects, embodiments or implementations may yield one or more of the following advantages. One advantage of the invention is that fan in the device is much quieter and less annoying to a user. The thermal performance of the fans that utilize the fans described herein are equivalent to the fans before the technique is used. Another advantage of these fans is that the fan impeller can still be balanced, as the center of mass is still located on the shaft of the impeller. Also, the designs in the embodiments described herein allow a fan to be smaller, which in turn, allows a portable device to be smaller.
The many features and advantages of the present invention are apparent from the written description and, thus, it is intended by the appended claims to cover all such features and advantages of the invention. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, the invention should not be limited to the exact construction and operation as illustrated and described. Hence, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to as falling within the scope of the invention.
This patent application is a continuation-in-part of and takes priority under 35 U.S.C. §120 to pending U.S. application Ser. No. 12/552,857, entitled “CENTRIFUGAL BLOWER WITH NON-UNIFORM BLADE SPACING” by Connor Duke and filed Sep. 2, 2009.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20120321493 A1 | Dec 2012 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 12552857 | Sep 2009 | US |
| Child | 13598585 | US |
