Unclematt
Well-Known Member
Hi All,
New around here, but have enjoyed reading site for years. I have been tossing around the idea of developing a ducted fan with a rim driven fan. Not too much to find online about this, and what there is mostly centers around marine applications of this design. Challenges include support bearings for the rim of the fan, powering the rim driven fan, and working out blade profiles and shapes. This design would even allow you to point the blades slightly front in the middle, or slightly rearward, depending on if this is found to be benficial or not. So if it produced more thrust, you could have a "conical" fan. You could also have adjustable pitch on the fan blades. Its all wide open.
I envision fan blades that do not meet, but leave the center of shroud open, but have toyed with an open cylinder in the center to join the blades and add strength.
I have also thought about a belt driven rim drive, a jet to "blow" the rim (like the avrocar used), a hallback array motor on the rim/shroud, and a couple of other ideas I need to flesh out.
Barring this, you could have a typical fan with a hub drive, and have the fan rim recessed into a groove in the shroud. I also want to mention I am not looking to reduce rotating mass too much as it would allow controlled descent during engine failure in VTOL applications with a pitch adjustable fan.
Please feel free to throw in your 2 cents.
New around here, but have enjoyed reading site for years. I have been tossing around the idea of developing a ducted fan with a rim driven fan. Not too much to find online about this, and what there is mostly centers around marine applications of this design. Challenges include support bearings for the rim of the fan, powering the rim driven fan, and working out blade profiles and shapes. This design would even allow you to point the blades slightly front in the middle, or slightly rearward, depending on if this is found to be benficial or not. So if it produced more thrust, you could have a "conical" fan. You could also have adjustable pitch on the fan blades. Its all wide open.
I envision fan blades that do not meet, but leave the center of shroud open, but have toyed with an open cylinder in the center to join the blades and add strength.
I have also thought about a belt driven rim drive, a jet to "blow" the rim (like the avrocar used), a hallback array motor on the rim/shroud, and a couple of other ideas I need to flesh out.
Barring this, you could have a typical fan with a hub drive, and have the fan rim recessed into a groove in the shroud. I also want to mention I am not looking to reduce rotating mass too much as it would allow controlled descent during engine failure in VTOL applications with a pitch adjustable fan.
Please feel free to throw in your 2 cents.
