Experimental investigation on power consumption of an industrial fan with different flow control methods

Basically, fans and pumps are designed to be capable of meeting the maximum demand of the system in which they are installed. However, quite often the actual demand could vary and be much less than the designed capacity. Therefore, to operate the pumps and fans in lower capacity several methods of flow control systems have been used by industries nowadays. In this research, a study has been carried out to verify the power consumption of an industrial fan of a cement plant in different flow control systems. It is observed that the flow control system with variable speed drive (VSD) is the best among all the flow control system used in the industries nowadays. Also, the energy saving band is constructed by putting the results in software which depicts the range of operational speed with the corresponding power consumption to compass the idea for selecting a suitable method of speed control according to the specific flow rate requirements. It is also observed that the highest internal rate of return (IRR) is coming in VSD flow control method which is around 55% and the lowest IRR is coming in outlet damper flow control method which is around 21%. Noise level is also the lowest in VSD controlled method that is 65 dB and the highest in outlet damper control method that is 80 dB. Similar results are also found in carbon footprint study for 1 year (240 days) of operation of the industrial fan that is the lowest in VSD controlled method and the estimated value is 208.08 tons CO2 (tCO(2)) per year whereas the highest carbon footprint is estimated in outlet damper control method that is 381.48 tCO(2) per year. Hence, we can conclude that by using an efficient flow control method like VSD system we can save energy as well as save our environment.