Is the Claim About the Fan's Discharge Rate and Velocity Reasonable?

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
3 replies · 8K views
a13x
Messages
9
Reaction score
0

Homework Statement


Been at this question for some time an needing a double check to see if things are right.

A fan that consumes 20W of eletric power when operating is claimed to discharge air from a ventilaed room at a rate of 0.25 kg/s at a discharge velocity of 8 m/s. Determine if this claim is reasonable?


Homework Equations


KE of wind = 0.5 mv^2
20W = 20 j/s


The Attempt at a Solution


When i worked it out i calculated it would be 8J. This seems to be posible for a 20W fan to do this work. Is this correct??
 
Physics news on Phys.org
You probably mean 8J/s - but yes, 40% efficency sounds reasonable.
 
Another question, related to the written above -
Is that correct to estimate the "usefull power" of a fan in the following way:

0- Estimating Force applied on fan. we get F.
1 - Estimating the velocity of the wind near the fan. we get Vo.
2 - using this estimation alone (ignoring wind decay & turbulences & whatever happens far from fan) to look at the picture from the wind's frame of reference- where the fan is moving with speed of -Vo, thus calculating P=Vo*F.

It's stage 2 I'm not completely sure of .. is that stage's logic OK?