Updated Application Page on Process Cooling Fans

If you have a processing plant of any kind, you most likely have an industrial cooling process among your centrifugal fan applications. That’s because manufacturing operations often use heat as a necessary element of part of the process, but heat can also be dangerous to other elements. Even when process heating is not in play, there is natural friction from moving parts that can create excess heat.

In the industrial cooling process, fans add cool ambient air to hot process air using pressure and airflow to remove heat. If your process involves applications like ovens, furnaces, boilers, and dryers, you’ll need to cool that air down again before the next step in the process.

Industries like food processing, energy, paper, pulp, plastics, metals, and glass rely on combustion for heating and drying purposes, so they all require fans in the cooling process.

Fan Design and Maintenance Considerations for the Industrial Colling Process

Protecting the fans used in any industrial application like the colling process starts in the design phase, and never stops. Proximity to high temperatures and possibly corrosive gasses means designing for the extremes, including vibration and temperature variations.

Here are a few common considerations for applications that involve a cooling process.

Duplicate Fans for Redundancy

Many cooling applications require two fans, either for redundancy or for additional pressure to handle extreme temperatures. Redundancy means designing the system with a built-in backup because it’s too important to fail. This is especially true for applications that address pollution control, because of the strict emissions regulations issued and governed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Failure to comply carries steep penalties, and that’s on top of the cost of downtime and repair if the system overheats.

Bearing Protection

We always recommend protecting and consistently maintaining the fan bearings, as it is the most common cause of fan failure. This is even more critical in high-temperature applications that require a specific cooling process. In these cases, we protect the bearings from extreme heat using insulation, heat slingers, and custom shaft seals.

Vibration Management

Where there are extreme conditions like high temperatures, vibration often follows. To further protect the bearings and fan from dangerous imbalances and avoid costly outages, we recommend using vibration sensors to monitor vibration levels and alert maintenance staff if vibration levels are too high.

Content Related to the Cooling Process

The post was just a preview – there is much more information about fans for the cooling process as well as the adjacent high-temperature and process heating applications. Read more on our updated Process Cooling Application page.

We’ve written about them in other blog posts and case studies too. Here are links to some of the other resources available:

We’ll be highlighting several more of our applications over the course of the year. Keep your eye on the All Things Fans blog and sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date, and please join the conversation on LinkedIn. For a connection with your local rep, request a quote or contact us.