Can an Award-Winning MIT Toroidal Drone Propeller Make a Better PC Fan?
James of the YouTube channel Major Hardware was fascinated by the design of an award-winning MIT toroidal drone propeller. Since the main improved characteristic of the design was noise reduction, he was curious to know if it could be applied to PC fans, too.
For this first round, his conclusion is no, not really. He didn’t have a model of the MIT prop, so he had to guess on the design based on photos. That could’ve been part of the problem or maybe a different blade configuration might improve things.
He might monkey around with it in the future or at least try using the toroidal design on a drone.
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If you count both sides of the toroid, the new fan with 3 toroids has 6 blades. Actually, each blade doesn’t “return” all the way to the centre hub so it’s even less.
Meanwhile, I count 9 blades on the conventional fan.
Increasing the number of toroids from 3 to 5 should give a closer match (about 10 blades). Sadly, I have no 3D printer to do this step.
I would like to see if a toroidal fan could reduce the very high level noise of an AC condenser.
If you count both sides of the toroid, the new fan with 3 toroids has 6 blades. Actually, each blade doesn’t “return” all the way to the centre hub so it’s even less.
Meanwhile, I count 9 blades on the conventional fan.
Increasing the number of toroids from 3 to 5 should give a closer match (about 10 blades). Sadly, I have no 3D printer to do this step.