Patent Application
20070242430
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a fan frame device and particularly to a fan frame, which provides a plastic frame member and a metal reinforcing member.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
The fan is an essential part of air-cooling radiator device and plays an important role for heat dissipation effect. The fan is the only movable part in the radiator device. Meanwhile, noise of the radiator device is influenced directly by the fan. The fan induces air to move through the cooling fins with a specific speed and a specific way for heat exchange being performed between the air and the cooling fins such that accumulated heat at the cooling fins can be carried away to achieve heat removal with forced convection.
Air flow and air pressure are factors deciding how powerful a fan is. The air flow refers a product of an area of the air passing through and a velocity of the air passing through the area. When the velocity is constant, larger outer diameter of the fan wheel leads to larger flowing area and more air flow can be induced. More air flow allows the cool air absorbs more heat so that the moving air can carry with more heat and effect of heat dissipation is enhanced. The air pressure refers addition of a static pressure and a dynamic pressure of the air so that greater air pressure enhances air-delivering capability of the fan.
In order to promote the gross effect of heat dissipation, the big sized fan has been employed to enhance heat dissipation efficiency. However, due to space limitation, not all the cooling systems are able to use the big sizes fan even if the smaller sized fan is unable to reach the expect effect of heat dissipation.
The inventor has found that if the inner side of the fan frame, i.e., the flow path of air, is increased radially under a condition of the size of the fan frame being unchanged, that is, the material between the outer side and the inner side becomes thinner. In other words, the air inlet and the air outlet areas can be increased and a bigger size fan wheel can be mounted to the inner side for generating more air flow.
Further, the inventor has found that most part of a fan frame is made of plastics and a little part of the fan frame is made of metal. The fan frame with plastic material is light but the strength thereof becomes weak in case of the fan frame being made thinner. The plastic fan frame is easy to become deformed in case of being subjected to a fore and to become soft in case of being subjected to a high ambient temperature for a long period of time. As a result, normal operation of the fan is affected substantially.
The metal fan frame provides enough strength but it is heavy and easy to produce louder noise while the air passing the fan frame to hit the inner wall of the fan frame. In addition, the metal fan frame is more costly than the plastic fan frame and manufacturing process of the metal fan frame is more complicated than the plastic fan frame.
In order to solve the preceding problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a fan frame device with which the inner side of the fan frame member expands toward the outer side thereof to the most for the flow path thereof being able to accommodate a fan wheel with a bigger diameter and promoting heat dissipation effect.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a fan frame structure in which the fan frame is composed of a plastic frame member and a metal reinforcing member for strengthening the fan frame and lessening noise and vibration.
Accordingly, the fan frame device according to the present invention includes a plastic frame member and a metal reinforcing member. The frame member has an outer side and an inner side. The inner side of the frame member defines a flow path for accommodating a fan wheel. The metal reinforcing member is joined to the frame integrally. The inner side of the frame is arranged to have a largest diameter so that the flow path provides more space for accommodating a larger size fan wheel. Hence, strength of the frame is reinforced, vibration and noise are reduced during a fan wheel running and integral effect of heat dissipation is enhanced largely.
The detail structure, the applied principle, the function and the effectiveness of the present invention can be more fully understood with reference to the following description and accompanying drawings, in which:
Referring to
The plastic frame member 11 provides a gross volume greater than the metal reinforcing member 13. Each of the four sides of the frame member 11 provides the shortest distance between the frame inner side 111 and the frame outer side 112, that is, spots a, b, c, d indicated by an arrow respectively are the shortest distances between the frame inner side 111 and the frame outer side 112 such that the inner side 111 expands radially to the most. That is, dimension of the outer side 112 is the same as the conventional fan frame but the inner side 11 provides a diameter greater than that of the conventional fan frame such that the spots a, b, c, and d are thinnest areas of the frame member 11.
The preceding metal reinforcing member 13 can be disposed next to the frame inner side 111 to face the fan wheel 12 as shown in
Referring to
The preceding metal reinforcing members 13 are belonged to annular type metal reinforced members 13. It is noted that discrete type metal reinforcing member 13 can be employed except the preceding annular type.
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to FIGS. 10 to 15, the second embodiment of a fan frame device according to the present invention is illustrated. The entire structure and functions of the second embodiment is almost the same as the preceding embodiment. The difference of the second embodiment from the preceding embodiment is in that the metal reinforcing member 13 provides a shape the same as the frame member 11 and is disposed next to the inlet 114 as shown in
Referring to FIGS. 13 to 15, the metal reinforcing member 13 in
Furthermore, the metal reinforcing member 13 in the preceding embodiments can be made of high strengthen compound material such as polymeric fiber and/or carbon fiber and/or plastic fiber and/or carbon-plastic fiber instead of metal.
Referring to
Referring to
As the foregoing, it is appreciated that comparing to the prior art, the fan frame structure of the application has the following advantages:
1. The plastic frame member 11 is joined to the metal reinforcing member 13, which also can be made of compound material, intimately for lessening noise generated from the fluid impacting the frame member 11 and diminishing consonant vibrations during the fan wheel 12 running in addition to intensifying strength thereof.
2. The frame member 11 is integrally joined to the metal reinforcing member 13 or the compound member provides higher strength such that the inner side 111 of the frame member 11 can be arranged to expand radially and outwardly toward the outer sides 112 to the most to obtain the bigger diameter of the inner side 111 than the prior art. In this way, the inlet and outlet of the frame member 11 becomes larger and more flow rate and higher air pressure can be obtained. Further, the flow passage 113 surrounded by the inner side 111 becomes more space for accommodating larger fan wheel 12 and increasing the flow rate.
3. The thinnest spots a, b, c and d of the frame member 11 can be obtained once the inner side of the frame member 11 expands radially toward the outer sides 112 to the most under support of the metal frame 15. Hence, it is capable of overcoming the deficiency of the conventional plastic fan frame providing insufficient strength and being easily deformed after being subjected to heat for a long period of time.
4. Due to the volume of the plastic frame member 11 is more than that of the metal reinforcing member 13, the entire fan frame of the present invention is lighter than the conventional metal fan frame so that not only the cost of the fan frame can be lowered but also it is capable of overcoming the problems of noise and vibrations, which the conventional metal fan frame is unable to breakthrough.
While the invention has been described with referencing to preferred embodiments thereof, it is to be understood that modifications or variations may be easily made without departing from the spirit of this invention, which is defined by the appended claims.
