T61 fan design - comments on new lenovoblogs post?

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#1 Post by **gator** » Wed May 16, 2007 6:43 pm

Matt has a new entry on his blog about the design of the T61 fan:
http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=81

Anyone mech/aero engineers here with the technical knowledge to comment on the design?

#2 Post by **ryengineer** » Wed May 16, 2007 6:57 pm

Very interesting read.

As a side note, you may wonder why all birds haven’t evolved to use this feather shape. What the owl gains in silence, it loses in overall speed. It also requires more energy to fly than an average bird. Saving energy is also why the owl can turn its head completely around. It can look for prey in 360 degrees without having to move its body.

Is this why they killed the battery life?

#3 Post by **gator** » Wed May 16, 2007 7:00 pm

ryengineer wrote: Is this why they killed the battery life?

I doubt that a fan will reduce the battery life as much as being reported.

#4 Post by **Kyocera** » Wed May 16, 2007 7:06 pm

Does sound pretty amazing, the way he came up with the design from watching the owl. It seems like the fan will have to be bigger to push as much air at a reduced noise level, hence the use of more power. It would be interesting to see the specs on the amps of the motors for the old and new design fans.

lophiomys · #5 Post by **lophiomys** » Thu May 17, 2007 5:10 am

Thanks, for the link, a quite interesting read.

If it would be that simple as described here, this engineer should have
a look at improving helicopter rotor blades.

beeblebrox · #6 Post by **beeblebrox** » Sat May 19, 2007 5:23 pm

lophiomys wrote:Thanks, for the link, a quite interesting read.

If it would be that simple as described here, this engineer should have
a look at improving helicopter rotor blades.

Impossible, the heli blade noise is from the supersonic speed of the blade end at the flight direction.

Those Lenovo engineers really have a problem with these fans, I guess they need better engineers who can program some micro code to get some useful fan control. The T4x series fan only has 3 speeds (loud, very loud, hair dryer).

lophiomys · #7 Post by **lophiomys** » Sat May 19, 2007 6:10 pm

beeblebrox wrote: Impossible, the heli blade noise is from the supersonic speed of the blade end at the flight direction.

If it would be supersonic, then you'd exceeded Vne.
In this situation the least you would be caring about
inside a helicopter is noise abatement procedures.
(Wikipedia calls it transsonic HSI noise, among other noise sources on the moving rotor blade)

Regarding the original article IMHO it is an over-simplification
to compare the aerodynamic owls wing with a blade of a radial fan.
That's all I wanted to hint at.

T61 fan design - comments on new lenovoblogs post?

T61 fan design - comments on new lenovoblogs post?

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