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Vortex ring fan

For long distance, or outside use.
  (+5)
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Maybe you've seen those toys that send smoke rings across the room? They generate vortex rings by thumping the back of a diaphragm into a shaped chamber with a circular exit, and can blow out candles at surprising distances, because the vortex ring is highly stable.
There are military applications as well: A small charge is used to generate pressure, and the resultant vortex ring can knock a man over. The charges can be set off at 10 per second, which is apparently totally debilitating, but not lethal.
What I propose is another version, where the diaphragm is rapidly oscillated, perhaps by a sub woofer speaker.
The rapidly created vortex rings would act like highly directional cooling fans, with long distance capability. I think these might be useful in gardens or large halls.

There might be many applications for portable, high power, devices: sweeping leaves; picking fruit; pest control etc.

Ling, Nov 05 2006

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       Yes, vortex rings are cool, but have some very real limitations, something to do with laminar/turbulent flow. Basically you can only invest a certain ammount of energy into the ring otherwise it just tears itself apart almost immediately.   

       The interesting thing is that they can be used to transport gas, ie smoke, propane (yes, go google it, all sorts of nefarious fun), cold air, etc. So maybe instead of using high power vortexes, simply use them to transport frigidly cold air, and then viola (haha) spot focus for your airconditioner.   

       One offshoot of this would be if you could run selective climate control. Different people in a room have customised air temperature settings. A computer driven set of vortex generators coupled with ho and cold air supplies will constantly fire vortexes at the recipient, continuously bombarding them with their preferred temperature (and scented?) air.   

       +
Custardguts, Nov 05 2006
  

       I like your idea of transportation of cold or hot air. That's a good improvement.
Ling, Nov 06 2006
  

       I think I have seen this on a small scale, used to cool a pc down. I will see if I can find a link.
Chefboyrbored, Nov 06 2006
  


 

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