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    Fan Engineering 1840-1930: Eur Ing Brian Roberts Ceng Honfcibse Life Member ASHRAE Cibse Heritage Group

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    phael_garrido
    This document provides a history of fan engineering from 1840-1930. It discusses the early uses of fans in mines in the 16th century and the development of curved fan blades around 1840. Major milestones and innovators in fan design are highlighted from the mid-19th century onward, including Buckle's backward-curved fan in 1847 and Barlow's multiblade fan design in 1878. Important early fan manufacturers from this era include Sturtevant, Buffalo Forge Company, and Davidson. The understanding of basic fan performance principles grew during this time period. The document also references later work by German engineer Bruno Eck on the mathematical treatment and research of fan design.

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    Fan Engineering 1840-1930: Eur Ing Brian Roberts Ceng Honfcibse Life Member ASHRAE Cibse Heritage Group

    Uploaded by

    phael_garrido
    61 views15 pages
    This document provides a history of fan engineering from 1840-1930. It discusses the early uses of fans in mines in the 16th century and the development of curved fan blades around 1840. Major milestones and innovators in fan design are highlighted from the mid-19th century onward, including Buckle's backward-curved fan in 1847 and Barlow's multiblade fan design in 1878. Important early fan manufacturers from this era include Sturtevant, Buffalo Forge Company, and Davidson. The understanding of basic fan performance principles grew during this time period. The document also references later work by German engineer Bruno Eck on the mathematical treatment and research of fan design.

    Original Title

    [1]FANS-INTRODUCTION

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    This document provides a history of fan engineering from 1840-1930. It discusses the early uses of fans in mines in the 16th century and the development of curved fan blades around 1840. Major milestones and innovators in fan design are highlighted from the mid-19th century onward, including Buckle's backward-curved fan in 1847 and Barlow's multiblade fan design in 1878. Important early fan manufacturers from this era include Sturtevant, Buffalo Forge Company, and Davidson. The understanding of basic fan performance principles grew during this time period. The document also references later work by German engineer Bruno Eck on the mathematical treatment and research of fan design.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    61 views15 pages

    Fan Engineering 1840-1930: Eur Ing Brian Roberts Ceng Honfcibse Life Member ASHRAE Cibse Heritage Group

    Uploaded by

    phael_garrido
    This document provides a history of fan engineering from 1840-1930. It discusses the early uses of fans in mines in the 16th century and the development of curved fan blades around 1840. Major milestones and innovators in fan design are highlighted from the mid-19th century onward, including Buckle's backward-curved fan in 1847 and Barlow's multiblade fan design in 1878. Important early fan manufacturers from this era include Sturtevant, Buffalo Forge Company, and Davidson. The understanding of basic fan performance principles grew during this time period. The document also references later work by German engineer Bruno Eck on the mathematical treatment and research of fan design.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 15

    Fan Engineering

    1840-1930

    Eur Ing BRIAN ROBERTS CEng HonFCIBSE


    Life Member ASHRAE

    CIBSE HERITAGE GROUP


    Fan Engineering 1840-1930

    Introduction
    The CIBSE Heritage Group Archive, compiled over some forty-five years, holds a modest, but important,
    collection of textbooks and information on Fans and Fan Engineering. The earliest use of fans and ventilation
    equipment seems to have been in the mines of Saxony (Germany) in the mid-16th century. This was described by
    Georgius Agricola in his book De Re Metallica (1556), and illustrated by a series of intricate woodcut illustrations
    (see Section-2 of this ebook). These early fans were wind-powered or operated by hand. In addition, use was
    made of large bellows worked by hand and levers and even by horses.
    Of particular historical interest is the Fanning Wheel of Dr Desaguliers used in the House of Commons in 1735.
    The date of the introduction of curved fan blades is uncertain, but is probably about 1840. However, Walker
    preferred the screw form of fan impeller.
    The History of Fan development is given in Part-3 and Part-4 of this ebook. This includes the backward-curved
    fan of Buckle (1847), the first true multiblade fan by the American Bennett Hotchkiss (1863), the similar form of
    multiblade fan by Charles Barlow of London (1878), leading to the successful Sirocco fan of Samuel Davidson
    (1898). Meanwhile in France, fan designs included that of Fournier & Cornu (1896). These latter designs are all
    centrifugal fans and are the main story featured in this ebook, though mention is made also of axial and cross-flow
    types.

    The 19th century also saw the establishment of major fan manufacturers. Benjamin Franklin Sturtevant (a
    shoemaker) of Boston, Massachusetts made a simple fan in about 1850, some three hundred years after the use of
    fans by the Saxony miners. By 1872 the Sturtevant Blower Company was in full operation. By 1884, the Buffalo
    Forge Company of Buffalo, NY, was making ventilating equipment and by 1896 was a major manufacturer of
    centrifugal fans (and in 1901 gave Willis Carrier The Father of Air Conditioning his first job). Other important
    fan-makers around the turn of the century included the American Blower Company of Detroit, Michigan,
    Matthews & Yates of Swinton in Manchester, Sutcliffe also of Manchester and Davidson of Belfast.
    As the design and manufacture of fans progressed, the understanding of the basic fan laws became fairly widely
    known, i.e. how fans perform in a system and the effect of speed changes on air volume delivery, pressure
    development and power requirements. This is explained in most ventilation and air conditioning textbooks, but
    the design of fan impellers is almost totally ignored.*

    However, this was not the case in Germany where Dr.Ing Bruno Eck published details of fan research and the
    mathematical treatment of fan design. Copies of his Preface to the Second German Edition (1952) and of his
    Preface to the First English Edition (1973) follow. His book Fans was translated and edited by Dr Rams Azad &
    Dr David R Scott. A copy of their Foreword follows, noting that in this field “Great Britain is a comparatively
    backward industry” and that Germany and Russia have developed important performance research techniques.

    *In 1954, this subject was covered by London’s National College for Heating, Ventilating & Fan Engineering which ran a specialist Diploma in Fan
    Engineering (though in 1955 this became an optional main subject choice in the standard H&V Diploma.)
    A partial example showing how the mathematical
    approach to centrifugal fan impeller design has
    evolved (from Eck)

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