VIBRATION ANALYSIS OF CONVENTIONAL CEILING FAN BLADE

Nikita Gawai,
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Thakur college of engineering and technology, Kandivali, Mumbai
ABSTRACT: - In this paper an attempt is made to do dynamic study of behavior of fan

blade. The paper emphasizes on the estimation of vibration response of a ceiling fan blade.
As we to know the dynamics of ceiling fan is a separate subject. In this paper it has been
shown how in dynamic condition the time varying air resistance causes vibrations. Also
analytical calculation with MATLAB response is provided for results.

Key words: - Ceiling fan blade, Matlab program, Vibration response,.

1. GENERAL REVIEW OF CEILING

FAN

development following is a list of major

ceiling fan styles.

The first ceiling fan appeared in early

1860and 1870s in united state. At that time
they were not powered by electric motor,
instated steam of running water was used in
conjunction with turbine, to drive a system
of belt which would turn the blade of two fan
unit, and so become popular in stores, are
restaurants and offices. Some of these
systems still survive today and can be seen
in parts of the southern United States where
they originally proved useful.

1 Cast Iron Ceiling Fan, 2. The Emerson

Heat Fan, 3. Direct Drive ceiling fan 4.
Friction drive ceiling fan, 5. Gear Driven
Ceiling Fan,6. Belt driven ceiling fan 7.
Punkish style ceiling fan

The electrically powered ceiling fan was

invented in 1882 by Philip Deilhi, He had
engineering the electric motor used in the
first single serving machine and in 1982
adapted that motor for use in ceiling
mounted fan.
1.1 TYPE OF CEILING FAN
Many type of ceiling fans have been
developed over the years in response to
several different factors such as serving
energy consumption, consciousness and
change in decorating styles the advent and
evolution of electronic technology has also
played a major role in ceiling fan

2. DYNAMICS OF CEILING FAN

BLADE
For adequate air circulation, ceiling
blade must imparts to the air stream
uniform velocity and pressure. Any
designed fan is sure to have
characteristics

fan
with
well
two

1) The individual blades will be narrow

at the tip, where the blades velocity
is high and will widen toward the
hub, where more blade area is
required due to lower blade velocity
2) The angle of blade to the plane of
rotation will be minimum at the tip,
and it will increase as the hub
approaches
only
with
such
calculated width. The angle at each
point on the blade can be designed

When a blade takes a turn through

0
360 rotation, the blade experience
air frictional forces, which is shown
in figure1 .In fact this forces is varied
Over a length blade.
Even this force is also a
function of velocity and pressure. It I
s also seen that the velocity at the
bottom and above the blade does
not remains constant, that is it varies
with respect to time. Therefore it is
quite interesting to find out the force
pattern over a ceiling fan blade
during its one rotation. Hence by
using Equation 1 one can find out
the
air resistive
force which
acts on
a blade.
In this paper
it is assumed
that, the velocity is changing at its
subsequent position rather than over
its entire length. Table 1 shows the
different values of air resistive force.
Unequal discharge velocities will
waste power in excess velocity
pressure, since velocity pressure

Table 1: Different air resistive forces

0
45
90
135
180
225
270
315
360

t(sec) Force(N
)
0
0
0
610-6
0.125 710-6
0.025 6.8106
0.0375 6.5100.05 6
610-6
0.0625 7.1106
0.075 6.3100.0875 6
6.2106
3. AN APPROACH TO ESTIMATE
VIBRATION
vibration response RESPONSE.The
of ceiling fan
blade is estimated by using the force
pattern which is shown in Table 1.
The estimation is done by using
following assumption
1. The entire blade of ceiling fan is
considered as a single degree of
freedom system.
2. The force pattern acting on
ceiling fan blade is periodic.

Thus by using Equation 2

one can obtain vibration response
which is shown in Figure 2.
Mx(t) + cx(t) + kx(t) = f(t).(2)

Figure 1: Skematic of a ceiling fan blade

F = A* *(dv/dy)
.(1)
-9
2
= 1.98310 kg/m s
-6

-4

= 1.9810 (1.59/0.200)(12020) 10
-6
= 6.3010 N

Calculation result at 600 rpm shown in table

Figure 2: Vibration response of

fanblade

CONCLUSION
From the present investigation the
vibration response is obtained. As such this
paper gives an idea to interpret the dynamic
behavior of blade in brevity. But as per as
its vibration is concerned the maximum
vibration amplitude is obtained as 3.29*10^11 mm.
REFERENCES
1. T. Irvine, an Introduction to the Shock
Response Spectrum Rev O, Vibrationdata
Publications, 2000.
2. L. Meirovitch, Analytical Methods
Vibrations, Macmillan, New York, 1967.

in

3. W. Thomson, Theory of Vibration with

Applications 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall, New
Jersey, 1981.

APPENDIX 1: Matlab program for

estimation of vibration response
of fan blade
%Program4.m
%Main program which calls PERIOD
%
%==================================
===============================
%Run "Program4" in MATLAB command
window. Program4.m and period.m
%should be in the same folder,and
set the path to this folder
%following seven lines contain
problem-dependent data
clc
clear all
xm=100.0;
xk=100000.0;
xai=0.1;
n=9; m=20;
time=0.12;
f=[8330 4720
4240
4170
4670
5880
6940
8330
9615
]';
t=[70
115.93 128.2
136.4
132.59 116.32 111 104.15 102.96

]';
%end of problem-dependent data
[phi,fzero,x,xpc,xps]=
period(xm,xk,xai,n,m,time,f,t);
fprintf('Response of a single
D.O.F. system under periodic
force\n\n');
fprintf('xm
= %10.8e\n',xm);
fprintf('xk
= %10.8e\n',xk);
fprintf('xai = %10.8e\n',xai);
fprintf('n
= %2.0f\n',n);
= %2.0f\n',m);
fprintf('m
fprintf('Applied
force and
fprintf('time = %10.8e\n\n',time);
response: \n\n');
fprintf('
i
t(i)
f(i)
x(i)');
fprintf('\n\n');
for i=1:9
fprintf(' %2.0f
%10.8e
%10.8e
%10.8e\n',i,t(i),f(i),x(i));
end
figure(1)
subplot(121);
plot(t,f); xlabel('t');
ylabel('F(t)');
title('Program 4: F(t)');
subplot(122);
plot(t,x);
title('Program 4: x(t)');
xlabel('t');
ylabel('x(t)');