Daikin Industries Improves HVAC Fan Efficiencies Using TURBOdesign1

“We wanted to improve air conditioning fan efficiency and did it by using TURBOdesign1,” said Toru Iwata, Researcher, Daikin Industries, Environmental Technology Laboratory. “As there were some examples of improved efficiency for our turbo compressors, we expected this software would also work for fans.” 

Previously, Daikin engineers had used quasi 3D design along with original house code on its fan design. However, they felt they had reached the limits of this approach and that there were few chances to improve fan efficiency unless they used better, more effective technology. Members of the Daikin design team had reviewed ADT case studies about how other companies successfully used TURBOdesign1 to improve the efficiencies of turbo compressors, so they decided to use it for the fan designs.

“We decided that 3D inverse design technology was needed to achieve the efficiency we wanted while shortening our design time” added Iwata. “Therefore, we chose TURBOdesign1 software.”

TURBOdesign1 is currently the only non-proprietary software that can be used to design turbomachinery via 3D inverse design technology. They found that the software is so easy to use that they required almost no training. Users needed only a basic understanding of fan designs.

The TURBOdesign Suite provides a more systematic approach to aerodynamic turbomachinery design than traditional CAD software, because, once an optimum input specification for a given design criteria (such as minimum loss, cavitation suppression, secondary flow suppression, etc.) has been obtained, it is used to develop new prototypes very rapidly, thereby reducing development time for new designs.

TURBOdesign1 runs on Windows - XP, 2000 and NT and requires 500Mb or more of random access memory (RAM) running on a 2.8GHz P4 and above processors. It also uses just 300Mb of disk storage space. Because its hardware requirements are relatively simple, Daikin did not have to purchase additional hardware or otherwise upgrade its computer systems to implement the TURBOdesign solution.

“We were almost immediately productive using the software for our fan design,” said Iwata. “Then, it took only about a year to feel we were fully versed in all its capabilities.”

According to Iwata, Daikin achieved up to an eight-point efficiency improvement on its newly designed air conditioning fan compared to the previous design.

“With TURBOdesign1, Daikin was able to take the efficiency of its air conditioning fan designs to higher levels,” commented Iwata. “Without it, we would not have been able to design these new fans.”

Iwata added that, with TURBOdesign1, Daikin’s product engineers increased planning accuracy and saved time and materials, which led to increased out-of-pocket cost savings along with the development of new models of higher efficiency fans.