This suction fan used in a newly designed, automated pick-and-place system for food packets on a production line generated high levels of noise. Conventional fan silencing would not only have posed a hygiene problem (attenuators make use of porous acoustic absorbent materials), but would also have required acoustic enclosure.
We re-designed the fan mounting system (interestingly, the fan itself was designed for model aircraft engines) and modified the geometry slightly. This reduced the fan noise at source by 8dB(A) without affecting the efficiency of operation - and at zero cost once designed-in to the unit.
