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With the electrification of road vehicles comes new demands on the cooling system. Not the least when it comes to noise. Less masking from the driveline and new features, as for example, cooling when charging the batteries drives the need for silent cooling fans. In this work a cluster installation of electrical fans is studied in different generalized installations and operating conditions. The fans are installed in a test rig where the operation could be controlled varying the speed, flow rate and pressure rise over the fan. On the vehicle side of the fan a generalized packaging space (similar to an engine bay for conventional vehicles) is placed. In this packaging space different obstruction can be placed to simulate the components and radiators used in the vehicle. Here generalized simple blocks in different configuration are used to provide well defined and distinct test cases.

Vehicle electrification is one of the biggest trends in the automotive industry. Without the presence of combustion engine, which is the main noise source on conventional vehicles, noise from other components becomes more perceivable; among these components, the cooling fan is one of the major noise sources, especially during battery charging. The design of cooling fan modules is usually carried out in the early stage before building prototype vehicles. Therefore, understanding the installation effects of the cooling fan on the radiated sound is essential to secure good customer satisfaction. In this study, three different measurement setups of cooling fans are carried out: free field, wall mounted, and in-vehicle measurement. Four cooling fan prototypes with different fan blade designs are used in each measurement. Correlations of these measurements are investigated through comparisons of the measurement results.