February 24, 2021

Fuel savings. Performance. Noise. Emissions. They’re all important. But did you know they’re all heavily influenced by how a large-scale engine is cooled?

How?

Simply put, every bit of energy that goes into turning the engine fan could in theory be used for something else — mainly, facilitating a vehicle or generator’s main purpose, which is to either move, work or provide power. So when cooling isn’t needed, it’s becoming more and more vital that the fan slow down while the engine is running.

This has a number of benefits. We dove deeper into these during a recent live stream, but in summation, they are:

• Fuel savings/performance: Using a variable-speed fan drive that provides cooling only when needed means more power to the wheels — and not to the fan.
• Lower noise: The more a fan turns at a lower speed, the less noise it makes. Pretty simple, but crucial — especially when considering increasing noise pollution regulations in the EU and elsewhere.
• Decreased emissions: This is a bit more technical, but as one of our application engineers has put it, “less fan speed means less power draw, and less power draw means better fuel efficiency, and better fuel efficiency means fewer emissions.”

Any component an engine creates a domino effect. An optimized cooling system makes sure the right pieces fall in the right place for OEs and end users alike.