The rotary fan –
Old hat or technology with more potential?

Rotho is expanding its innovative product range for the drying of heavy clay products to include rotary fans in different sizes and with different fittings. As before, rotary fans are still used in many sectors of the brick and tile industry for air recirculation. From an analysis carried out by the research department of Rotho it is apparent that there is still considerable potential for the more effective utilization of this technology, which is described in this article.

1 Introduction

The rotary fans were invented in the 1950s in Italy. Through constant further developments the rotary fan has prevailed meanwhile against large-area fans or travelling fans [1, 2, 3, 5]. Today it is the most frequently used ventilation equipment in the brick and tile industry in the industrial states [4, 6].

But does the rotary fan still fit into a time, in which fast drying processes are establishing themselves increasingly and the call for energy-saving technologies is becoming louder and louder? In order to answer this question, various rotary fan designs were tested for their...

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