Engineering School Plans Research of Improved Ventilating Apparatus

A fan testing laboratory designed to standardize and perfect modern ventilating equipment has been established at the Engineering School, it was announced yesterday by H. E. Clifford '89, Dean of the School. The project was undertaken because of the increasing importance of mechanical air and temperature control in modern building construction, where in many cases the traditional windows and ventilators have been abandoned in favor of mechanical ventilation. In addition to this practical application, it is also believed that the new investigations will lead to improvements in fans or blowers used in power plants and industrial processes, and the perfection of propellers used for marine and air transport.

Preliminary studies at the new laboratory, Dean Clifford states, have definitely shown that inlet boxes and ducts commonly used with commercial fans may reduce the capacity of the fan by as much as 50 per cent, and that simple adjustments can result in large savings. Further studies are to consider the effect of air pulsations on fan performance, a subject which is now being considered by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers. The performance of axial flow fans is also being studied in detail.

The investigation under way involves the determination of the direction of the flow and of the velocity of the air at all points in the fan while the fan is rotating at speeds up to 3000 revolutions per minute, and also the simultaneous determination of the air pressure in every part of the fan. This demands experimental procedures of considerable complexity, but this work is necessary as a basis for the analysis of existing fans and for improving their design.

The laboratory has already proved useful to a variety of industrial and community projects by providing an independent agency for fan testing. Such tests have been made for the East Boston Vehicular Tunnel and the Harvard Medical school Power Plant