German automotive supplier Mahle has been hard at work on next-gen electric drive systems, and it's also been exploring other critical components to help make vehicular electrification a more viable reality. At September's IAA Transportation show, it revealed a thermal management fan that borrows from nature to provide smoother, quieter, more efficient performance on the road and at the charger. The fan is designed to meet the needs of the full spectrum of vehicles, from small urban EVs to large fuel cell trucks.
In order to arrive at its unique fan blade design, Mahle used an AI engine to explore a variety of possible biomimetic options.
"We analyzed the characteristic features of bats, swordfish, and many other inspirations from nature," explained Dr. Uli Christian Blessing, Mahle's development chief for thermal management. "We finally ended up with the owl, the silent hunter, as the main template for our new fan."
Blessing doesn't exaggerate; owls are well-known as a silent predator, able to effectively swoop down on their prey in virtual silence thanks to the unique form of their wing feathers. Both the leading and trailing edges are broken into small comb-like serrations that smooth out air turbulence to cut noise and provide the owl's hyper-quiet hunting ability.
While Mahle may have indeed used AI to help narrow its specific search, it didn't start from scratch on the idea of an owl-like blade. This style of design has been researched and pursued by a number of entities over the years, proposed for myriad uses that include wind turbines, aircraft engines and gaming system cooling hardware. In fact, German building and machinery component supplier Ziehl-Abegg has developed a full lineup of FE2owlet multipurpose axial fans with owl wing-inspired blades.
Compared to the F2owlet, Mahle's design looks downright docile and much less saw-like, but it still employs serrations along the wavy blade edges to channel and quiet airflow. The company says the blade design works much like it does on the owl's wing, cutting noise by up to 4 decibel A, more than half the sound output of a standard fan.
"One can imagine the sound reduction power of our fan to be like that of turning off one of the speakers on a stereo system," Blessing analogized.
Mahle says the effect is particularly valuable when the vehicle is running at full load or fast-charging at night, cutting down on noise pollution for both the vehicle driver and those nearby.
The new blade design also results in 10% more efficient performance and a weight savings of 10% versus a conventional fan design, Mahle reports. Drivers may not notice any difference at the battery gauge, but efficiency optimization is the name of the game when it comes to EV design, and every bit contributes.
Mahle has designed the fan for a scalable power range between 300 and 35,000 watts so it could be equipped to everything from small electric passenger cars to large commercial vehicles. Beyond just battery electrics, it's also designed for use in fuel cell electric setups, and Mahle debuted it within an FCEV truck cab mockup with a full complement of FCEV system components, including its first all-electric axle with two SCT motors.
Mahle has supplied initial fan prototypes to both passenger and commercial vehicle manufacturers for testing. Citing forecasts that battery and fuel cell electric trucks will make up 30 percent of global production by 2035, the company plans to continue attacking the challenges of electrification from multiple angles, developing both next-gen electric drives and optimized components.
Source: Mahle