WhalePower is in the process of developing a range of new, more efficient fans for computer cooling. Our corporation holds the patent to develop new fans, turbines, pumps and compressors improved by a unique blade shape, enhanced by bumps on the leading edges of the rotor blades called "tubercles." This innovation was discovered by WhalePower’s President, Dr. Frank Fish, who discovered that the bumps on the leading edges of humpback whale flippers or “Tubercles” changed the flow of fluid across these immense natural wings. When applied to turbine and fan blades, these Tubercles increase lift, reduce drag, eliminate stall and operate virtually silently. In short they make a better airfoil that can improve a host of products from turbines to pumps, fans and even mixers.

We have recently begun prototyping new tubercled computer fans to improve energy efficiency in laptop and desktop computers which draw huge amounts of energy to operate year round. An estimated 5% of the energy used in the United States annually is to power computers. 60% of the energy a computer uses is spent on powering the cooling fan inside. The computer fans that WhalePower is developing are roughly 12% more efficient than the most efficient fans of their kind. We hope to increase this energy saving to approximately 20% energy savings with further research and development.

Tubercle airfoils are the first non-laminar flow airfoils. They create a new kind of fluid flow management. The flow across the surface of the blade is in fact ultra-stable. They can operate at previously impossible high stall angles which generate higher lift and they always stall gradually.

The combination of ultra stability with high lift and low drag represents a very important advantage in the world of computer cooling fans. The ability to move significantly more air with enough pressure to move the air through the constricted space inside a computer can dramatically improve efficiency. A 20% reduction in that consumption will amount to one of the greatest conservation measures ever undertaken, potentially reducing the power consumption for these devices by millions of kilowatts.

Tubercle airfoils are eminently manufacturable using the same industrial fabrication techniques as those used for conventional fans. So far, in every case developed to date, manufacturing costs have been virtually identical to those of conventional fans and rotors. (In the case of HVLS fans the costs are actually lower.)

The application of this technology to computers and servers will actually pay for itself in a matter of months through energy savings and will also reduce the ambient noise of the machines.