JP2008175099A - Electronic computer fan unit structure - Google Patents

Abstract

A fan unit structure in which fans that can be hot-plugged are arranged in series to improve the air volume of a cooling device and to ensure the safety of an operator at the time of hot-plugging is realized.
Hexagonal honeycomb lattices (11, 12) for rectifying the swirling speed component by a fan (3) are installed on one side or both sides of an intake side and an exhaust side of two axial fans (3) arranged in series. Further, by attaching the rectifying grids 11 and 12 so as to be integrated with the housing 10 and the top plate 13, respectively, the safety of the operator's fingers is prevented from entering the fan unit when the fan unit is hot-plugged. Secured.
[Selection] Figure 4

Description

  The present invention relates to a fan unit structure that simultaneously realizes the performance improvement of axial fans arranged in series and the safety during hot-line insertion / extraction.

  Currently, an electronic device mounted on an electronic computer typified by a server or the like is increasing in heat generation as the operation speed is improved. For this reason, it is difficult to cool the apparatus. In addition, due to the rise of high-density computers represented by blade servers, the pressure loss of the entire apparatus is also increasing.

  In order to solve the above problem, it is necessary to secure a sufficient cooling air flow. One of the methods is to arrange axial fans in series. This method can increase the amount of cooling air flowing through the high pressure loss device by improving the static pressure by the fan. At the same time, since the cooling air necessary for the apparatus can continue to flow even when a fan failure occurs, it is often used in highly reliable computers that are expected to operate at all times.

  In order to improve the performance of the fan, a method using a rectifying grid has also been proposed. As a known example, JP-A-2005-003256 can be mentioned. In this method, in the air purifier, rectifying grids are installed on the intake side and the exhaust side of the sirocco fan, thereby eliminating the turbulence of the air flow, improving the performance of the fan, and reducing the noise.

JP 2005-003256 A

  When two axial fans are arranged in series, the maximum static pressure is ideally doubled, but actually, the value is about 1.2 to 1.5 times. This is because in the conventional method, the exhaust fan of the upstream side fan has a swirl speed component caused by the rotation of the fan, and the downstream fan cannot exhibit sufficient performance. This phenomenon can be solved by widening the gap between the fans, but in many cases, especially in a high-density computer, it is impossible due to a problem in the device space. In this case, the problem can be solved by installing a rectifying grid on the exhaust side of the upstream fan.

  On the other hand, a fan installed in a highly reliable system needs to be maintained without stopping the system even in the event of a failure. Examples of conventional fan box and fan unit structures are shown in FIGS. In addition, the arrow in a figure shows a wind direction. In the conventional method, when the fan unit 1 is removed from the fan box 2, the air inlet 4 and the air outlet 5 of each fan unit 1 are protected by a punching plate or the like so that fingers do not touch the inside of the fan 3. There was a need to do. For this reason, pressure loss occurs on the intake and exhaust surfaces of the fan 3, and there is a problem that a sufficient air volume and static pressure cannot be obtained.

  For the above reasons, even if the static pressure when the rectifying grid is installed and the fans are installed in series is restored, the fan unit housing has a large pressure loss, so the performance of the fan is reduced as a whole. It will be. As a result, in order to ensure the cooling performance of the device, it is necessary to increase the number of rotations of the fan and increase the fan diameter, resulting in an increase in the size of the device and an increase in noise.

  In order to solve the above-described conventional problems, the fan unit of the present invention is a grid for rectifying the rotational speed component by the fan on one side or both sides of the intake side and the exhaust side of the axial fans arranged in series. Is installed. Furthermore, in order to ensure the safety at the time of hot plugging / unplugging, the fan, the fan housing, and the rectifying grid are integrated into a fan unit structure.

  The fan unit of the present invention can bring the static pressure of two axial fans arranged in series close to the ideal value of twice. At the same time, the rectifier grid integrated with the housing also enables finger protection during hot-line maintenance, eliminating the need for a separate protection mechanism and reducing pressure loss at the fan inlet and outlet. be able to. As a result, it is possible to reduce the fan rotation speed and the fan diameter, and there is an advantage that cooling of a high pressure loss device can be realized with low noise.

  A fan unit that improves the static pressure of two axial fans arranged in series and that does not touch the inside of the fan when the fingers are hot-plugged is inserted into the fan box integrated with a rectifying grid of hexagonal honeycomb structure. Realized by incorporating a fan.

  An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. FIG. 3 is an external view of a fan box equipped with four fan units of the present invention, and FIG. 4 is an exploded view of the fan unit of the present invention.

  This fan box 9 is applied to a high-performance and high-reliability server device that performs maintenance during operation when a fan fails. The entire apparatus is cooled by four fan units mounted in the fan box 9. During maintenance during operation, the fan 3 inside the fan unit is designed to be removed even if it is in operation.

  The fan box 9 is mounted with a total of four fan units, two in series and two in parallel with respect to the flow direction of the cooling air. Hereinafter, the structure of the fan unit will be described.

  The fan unit housing 10 is provided with a connector 15 to be fitted to the fan box 9 side, and a substrate 14 for controlling the LED control for recognizing fan failure and the rotational speed of the fan 6. Further, a knob 16 for inserting / removing the fan unit is provided. The punching plate in the exhaust part of the conventional housing of FIG. 2 does not exist and has a shape hollowed in a circle. The exhaust-side rectifying grid 11 is integrated and attached to the exhaust portion of the housing 10 by fitting or welding. The mylar sheet 6 disposed at the intake port of the fan 3 is for preventing the air discharged from the exhaust port of the fan from being circulated to the intake port. The intake side rectifying grid 12 is attached to the top plate 13 in the same manner as the intake side rectifying grid 11. The fan 3 and the mylar seat 6 are the same as those in FIG.

  The rectifying grids 11 and 12 rectify the turbulence of the airflow of the fan 3 and the intake air and the exhaust cooling air, and also serve as a finger guard for preventing fingers from touching the fan 6 when the fan unit is inserted and removed. The lattice shape is a hexagonal honeycomb structure, and the size and thickness of the honeycomb are freely set according to the characteristics of the fan under the condition that fingers do not enter the inside. Further, the rectifying grid is not necessarily required on both sides of the intake and exhaust, and may be installed only on one side. However, when the rectifying grid is arranged only on one side, a mechanism for protecting fingers such as a punching plate is required on the opposite side.

  When the cooling air rectified by the intake air rectifying grid 12 of the upstream fan unit 7 passes through the fan 3, a swirl speed component is given by the moving blade portion. In the downstream fan unit 8, when cooling air having a swirl velocity component in the same direction as the rotation of the moving blades of the fan 3 enters, the static pressure decreases with respect to the specification value of the fan alone, Although sufficient performance cannot be obtained at the time of arrangement, the cooling air is rectified in the flow direction of the cooling air by the exhaust side rectifying grid 11 and then guided to the intake side of the downstream fan unit 8. The fan unit 8 can also exhibit sufficient performance. For this reason, the static pressure of the fan at the time of series arrangement can be recovered to nearly twice the ideal value.

  In an electronic computer that performs hot-swapping of axial fans arranged in series, the fan's air volume and static pressure can be obtained sufficiently in a limited space. Applicable to computer cooling system.

This is a mounting example of a fan box equipped with four conventional fan units. It is an exploded view of the conventional fan unit structure. It is a mounting example of the fan box which mounts the fan unit which integrated the rectifying grid (Example 1). (Example 1) which is the exploded view of the fan unit structure which integrated the rectifier grid.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Conventional fan unit, 2 ... Conventional fan box, 3 ... Axial fan, 4 ... Fan unit exhaust port, 5 ... Fan unit intake port, 6 ... Mylar seat, 7 ... Fan unit of this invention (upstream side) DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 8 ... Fan unit (downstream side) of this invention, 9 ... Fan box, 10 ... Housing, 11 ... Exhaust side rectifying grid, 12 ... Intake side rectifying grid, 13 ... Fan unit top plate, 14 ... Board | substrate, 15 ... Connector , 16 ... Knob for fan unit insertion / extraction.

Claims (3)

  An electronic computer that performs cooling by arranging axial flow fans that can be hot-plugged in series, on one side or both sides of an intake side and an exhaust side of a housing of the fan, provided with a rectifying grid for cooling air passing through the fan A fan unit structure characterized by   2. The fan unit structure according to claim 1, wherein the housing and the rectifying grid are integrated to prevent fingers from entering the fan during hot line maintenance.   3. The fan unit structure according to claim 2, wherein the rectifying grid has a hexagonal honeycomb structure.

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