Air Multiplier vs Fan
A fan is a mechanical device used to create a fluid flow, typically, in gas or air. It is a common electrical device that today we can see in almost every electrical or electronic appliance or device for moving air through a cooling or a heating process.
A fan consists of an impeller, which is a set of angled blades connected to a rotating hub. The hub is rotated using an electric motor, forcing the air to move when the blades are pushing/pulling air towards or away from the impeller. No matter how large the fan is, the fundamental operation is as given above. The flow created by a fan is a low pressure high volume flow.
Often the moving parts of the fans are covered or out of reach of humans. Nevertheless, for aesthetic purposes and safety, different designs of fans are introduced. One such design is the Air Multiplier. In air multiplier, the rotating or moving parts are completely encased in a plastic casing and invisible.
The Dyson Air Multiplier desk fan was launched in October 2009, and the pedestal and tower variations were introduced in June 2010. It has no exposed rotating components and designed to deliver a smoother airflow than an ordinary fan. The Air multiplier can be considered as a spinoff from Dyson’s Air-blade hand dryer. In the Air blade design, engineers realized that a large volume of air taken in is retained, and improved the design to move air in a continuous flow. The Air Multiplier fan received the Good Design Award in 2010.
What is the difference between Air Multiplier and Fan?
• A fan is a mechanical device used to create a high volume low pressure gas/air transfer. Often fans are used as an air supply device in cooling or heating systems.
• A fan has an impeller that moves the air by the rotational motion of its blades, and the impeller is driven by an electric motor.
• Ordinary fan either pushes or pulls air to create the air flow using the impeller blades. But the Air Multiplier creates the main air flow using a much smaller airflow. The Bernoulli principle governs the operation in this step. (A smaller air flow creates larger airflow.)
• Dyson Air Multiplier is a fan with all the moving parts covered using a casing and the moving parts cannot be seen.
• An ordinary fan delivers quite a turbulent air flow, though the Air Multiplier is designed to deliver air smoothly. A fan is delivering the air using impeller blades and the separation of the blades creates intermittent pressure zones and turbulence, whereas the Air multiplier creates a continuous air flow.
• However, in a unit time, the air volume delivered from an ordinary fan is much higher than the air volume delivered by the Air Multiplier.