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Cooling Computers with Tiny Jet Engines

techreview.com — At Hewlett-Packard, they've found one answer in an unexpected place: model jet airplanes. HP is adapting fans from radio-controlled jets to relieve heat-stressed computer servers.

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  • dhelmet78, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31Quiet too, I'm sure. WHATS THAT NOISE? OH THAT? IT'S JUST MY COMPUTER FAN!
  • Braingoo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24HP better have good lawyers the first time a server flys off the racks boucing around a small server room killing many inocent sys admins.
  • hplasm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Strictly speaking, neither tiny, nor jet engines...
  • john570, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5What!? What!?......... Wait a minute let me turn off my pc.
  • mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8jet engines produce very hot air. model airplane propellers are in no way similar to jet engines - not sure why the reporter got that impression..
  • igorparsadanov, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The title is written wrong. Should say "Cooling Computers with Ducted Fan Engines. What I wonder is about the reliability of those, and model electric motors get hot themselves and need heatsinks and could only run for short burst at a time before needing to stop and cool down.
    • phatvolvo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5not if you ran them at, like, 50% throttle. Then you'd get a nice little brushless fan which would still blow your hat off...
    • techguy1967, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3hplasm, mrAssman, Wizard750201,

      I'm the reporter who wrote this story, and I did not have the impression that electric ducted fans are jet engines. HP's fans are adapted from the engines that power tiny jets -- which is what the headline says. (The model jets are still called jets even without gas-powered jet turbines.)

      Wade Roush
    • Wizard750201, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Mr. Roush
      Planes may look like a jet but are still called prop, ducted fans or jet, it is what powers the aircraft. It is not a big deal just want you to know.
    • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1techguy1967:

      Some model planes use real jet engines. But they are very expensive (several thousand an engine).

      So more model planes use ducted fans. A ducted fan doesn't product power by combustion inside the duct, instead it has a separate engine/motor. That motor spins a propellor in the duct, to make a jet of air flow through.

      From the outside, it looks like a jet, and that's what's important because flying RC planes never look real from the inside anyway. But it isn't really a jet.

      So HP is learning about ducting from RC flyers. Nothing wrong with that.
  • Wizard750201, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Bad title. I fly model planes, this is NOT a jet engine it is a ducted fan, as the picture states. The noise would still be outrageously loud. If it were a true model jet engine you would need earmuffs and several feet of clearance in back along with a heat shield!
  • igorparsadanov, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Here is a link to a REAL Model Jet engine, a jetcat.
    http://youtube.com/watch?v=SVupr5w8yxI&search=jetcat
    • wthnow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1that video was awesome!! nice find!! I want to build a model plane with some of those
  • SnowSurfns, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10oh i see how this works...you need to use model airplane fans to cool the processors, then you need water to cool the model airplanes, then you need a refrigerator to cool the water.

    INGENIOUS!
  • zimm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7heatpipe everything to a large sink outside the case.

    just make the motherboards so the heatsinks are outside the case.

    neither needs fans. we're just holding on to a stupid design that requires fans. why?
    • primal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Multiproc servers usually don't have the surface area, airflow or clearance needed to keep everything cool enough just using heat piping. Though it would definitely help.
    • wthnow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1remember when cpus could be run just with heatsinks? those were the days...
  • Bluezdood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Like Wizard, I too fly model airplanes, but not ducted fan models. These are in no way jets, but yes they are hella loud. In fact, some states ban them because of the noise they generate. My one teacher in high school that flew them said the smallest engine produces the sound equivalent of 4 dirtbikes reving their engines. Don't know if it's true, interesting none-the-less.
  • incognegro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Yeah, that's not gonna make any noise....
  • Millbuddah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Interesting to see how they'll make this all work and not drive the people insane with the noise. Although you could probably get a similar effect by putting in a couple of the really big Dealta fans. Damn I can't believe how loud those things get.
  • Pushkin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Hehe... BLADE system!
  • yournamehere, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10HP-747, you are cleared for processing
  • ChiGGz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Now we've given terrorists a new medium to hijack.
    Homeland security will be all over this.
  • jfox00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1FTA: "Essentially propellers in a box"

    So...its a lot like the fan I have in my desktop now, only louder because its spinning faster. Innovative.
  • whisperedlie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm pretty sure IBM already has jet engines in their servers. Has anyone had to work with their E-Series? Cheese and crackers, Tim... hearing protection required in the cage at all times.
  • troublemaker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2P-uh-lease!

    Electric fan != jet engine
  • jweinraub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Eh, not powerful enough, rather get the GE90 - 115,000 lbs of thrust should be enough for my needs. Should get two and build my own 777 while I am at it...
  • drchadwick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1> In essence, CPUs are tiny radiators, which happen
    > to do computational work as they busily convert
    > electricity into heat. Every watt of energy used by a
    > data center's servers in the form of electricity has to
    > be expelled as heated air.

    Is anyone working on a way to put that heat to good use? Thermodynamics dictates we're never going to get all the energy back, but still, couldn't it be used to generate some electricity?

    • primal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1That'd be great, instead of water cooling we'd have steam generators... Too bad we don't want anything to get that hot. In the process of getting the temperature high enough to be reused for anything other than heating the room, we'd cook our processors.
  • goat4, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1vantec tornado anyone?
  • basselope, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sweeeet!!
    I'm gonna build me a 2-stroke computer... I can just see it:

    " The all new AMD Dimpron 32cc Processor."

    hehehehehehe!!
  • illt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0this concept has been around for sometime and been discussed on many pc cooling sites.
  • loveandrockets, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4New startup sequence for jet servers:

    1. Prep (fuel pumps, bleed air, electrical power, etc.)
    2. Throttles to cutoff.
    3. Air starter or starter motor switch on. Igniter units on.
    4. Monitor engine RPM increase to 50 - 60% of maximum.
    5. Throttles to idle.
    6. Watch for lightoff
    7. Release starter switch. Continue to monitor exhaust gas temperature for fire or stall.
  • Nobi-Wan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Cool, can I get one for my 360? I'm sure I'll barely hear it over its fan anyway.
  • V1ncent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Hey Bob... our company's intranet is down. Was there a server crash?
    Yessir. The server flew out the window and crashed into a tree.
  • cablemonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2my gods, a 1U rackmount server already makes a load roar...I can only imagine what this will sounds like.
  •  

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