What happens to teh air pressure when a fan is used?

AI Thread Summary
When a fan moves air, it increases static pressure at the outlet while slightly decreasing it at the inlet, in line with Bernoulli's principle that faster fluid flow results in lower pressure. Although fans are technically compressors, the pressure rise is minimal, often measured in inches of water. The pressure can drop if air moves through a tube that changes size or encounters resistance, with energy loss leading to this decrease. To counteract pressure loss, adding an inline blower can help, and resources like Crane Technical Paper 410 can assist in calculating pressure drops. Overall, within a closed system, the fan can increase both the speed and pressure of the air.
infamous_Q
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Ok. so say you have a fan that is moving air, at 1 atm, at about 10 m/s. what exactly happens to the pressure? does it change at all or...?
 
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Well, according to Bernoulli, the faster a fluid flows, the lower the pressure. Does that answer your question?
 
A fan increases the static pressure on it's outlet and can also decrease the static pressure on the inlet slightly.
 
Along what Q_Goest mentioned...

Even though very slight in comparrison, a fan is technically a compressor. The static pressure rise is usually in the order of inches of water. A lot of jet engine manufacturers (including my company) will sometimes refer to the fan as a low pressure compressor.
 
hmm...so if you had something at like 30psi (just a number here..) and used a fan to increase the speed through a straight tube, the pressure would drop...
a) is there anyway to increase this pressure again (with the air still moving at the speed it was before
b) how could i calculate how much it drops?
 
Put an additional blower inline. Depending upon your final downstream pressure(if atmosphere) there may be choked flow in the pipeline. Crane Technical Paper 410 is a good resource for calculating pressure drops in pipe lines and accessories and worth to have it at 40USD.
 
infamous - you're crossing contexts here, morry's post isn't clear on this either as you are not in a steady state condition.

If you have air moving in a tube and that tube changes size then the air's speed and pressure would change to correspond to it.

If you add energy to the air with a fan you can increase both its speed and pressure.

As the air encounters resistance from the tube walls (and turbulence) some of its energy will be lost and thus the pressure will drop as a result. The longer and smaller the tube the larger this effect would be.
 
morry said:
Well, according to Bernoulli, the faster a fluid flows, the lower the pressure. Does that answer your question?

Bernoulli cannot be applied along a streamline which passes through a fan in motion, unless your reference frame is attached to the rotor.

As Qgoest and CliffJ have said, the fan increases both velocity and pressure air. But it is certain too that the whole stuff is embeded in an uniform pressure atmosphere. The jump of pressure is very slow, and such pressure energy will be dissipated along the fan weak.
 
I think the simplest answer will be " the pressure will increase if we take the fan and it's surrounding as a closed system as per energy conservation law
 
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