A tubeaxial fan (10) broadly including a cylinder (12), a propeller
(14) rotatably supported in the cylinder (12), and a drive assembly
(16) operable to rotate the propeller (14) is disclosed. The propeller
(14) includes blades (28,30,32,34,36,38) each having an inventive
blade design. The inventive blade design presents a chord length (C), a stagger
angle (e), and a camber height (c) that vary
along each of the blades as shown in TABLE 1. The inventive blade design presents
an external surface of each of the blades having a shape defined by the relative
positioning of a plurality of coordinates contained in at least nine cross-sections
(e.g., the blade (28) includes cross-sections (44,46,48,50,52,54,56,58,60)).
The cross-sections (44,46,48,50,52,54,56,58,60) of the illustrated blade
(28) have the corresponding plurality of coordinates listed in TABLE 2.
The drive assembly (16) incorporates an inventive design that presents,
among other features, a cover dimension DC of the bearing cover (72)
of less than about one-sixth the propeller diameter (), and tapering end
sections (76a,76b) on the belt cover (76). A
preferred alternative embodiment is also disclosed in the fan (210) including
support plates (212a,212b) having a plate width (WP)
between about one-tenth and one-seventh of the axial length of the cylinder (212).