Characteristics of unsteady flow field and flow-induced noise for an axial cooling fan used in a rack mount server computer

The recent development of small and lightweight rack mount servers and computers has resulted in the decrease of the size of cooling fans. However, internal fans still need to achieve a high performance to release the heat generated from interior parts, and they should emit low noise. On the contrary, measurement data, such as flow properties and flow visualizations, cannot be obtained easily when cooling fans are small. Thus, a numerical analysis approach is necessary for the performance evaluation and noise reduction of small cooling fans. In this study, the noise of a small cooling fan used for computers or servers was measured and then compared with the aeroacoustic noise result based on a numerical analysis. Three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations were solved to predict the unsteady flow field and surface pressure fluctuation according to the blades and casing surface used. The simplified Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings equation was used to predict aeroacoustic noise by assuming that a dipole is the major cause of fan noise. Results of the aeroacoustic noise analysis agreed well with that of the experiment, and a tonal noise whose frequency was lower than the first blade passing frequency could be identified in the noise spectrum. This phenomenon is caused by the shape of the bell mouth. A coherence analysis was performed to examine the correlation between the shape of the cooling fan and the noise.