How Things Work
With over 150 years experience Howden is recognised as a world leader in the design and supply of highly stressed rotating equipment and other air and gas handling machinery. During this time we have accumulated an in-depth knowledge of our products and the applications in which they are used.
We believe that it is important that our customers have a good understanding of the basic principles of operation of our products, in the same way that our engineers understand their application in the wide range of processes they are used in. This improves the dialogue between supplier, main contractor and equipment user and results in more efficient and reliable process plant.
In this section...
Axial Fans
A common example of an axial fan is a typical desk fan. The name "axial" comes from the fact that the air passing through the fan does not change direction and flows parallel to the fan axis. An axial fan is normally used when the flow requirements are high and the pressure demand is low.
Blowers
Blowers inhabit an operating envelope between fans and compressors, and indeed many blowers are essentially high pressure fans. There is no hard and fast boundary between a fan, a blower and a compressor, and the turbo-compressor is also referred to as a turbo-blower.
Centrifugal Fans
Centrifugal fans also known as radial fans are the most common type of fan in use today. The principle of operation, albeit relatively simple, has evolved over the years with machines now capable of high aerodynamic efficiency and with significant powers.
Compressors
With almost a century of experience in the manufacture of specialised compressors, Howden's expertise is based on innovation by well known names: Burton, Corblin, Ljungstrom and Donkin.
Cooling Fans
A cooling fan is a specialised axial fan used to supply large flows of air to cooling towers, heat exchangers and steam condensers in industrial plant. As the pressure drop across the cooling system is very low, the fans operate at low speeds and for large installations can be up to 25m in diameter.
Rotary Heat Exchangers
The rotary regenerative heat exchanger, commonly known as the air preheater or gas reheater was invented by the Swedish engineer Frederick Ljungstrom in 1922. Shortly after, Howden and Ljungstrom worked together to commercialise the technology for use in the power generation industry.