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SERVER FAN-HOUSING USES AMODEL POLYPHTHALAMIDE
Amodel polyphthalamide has been chosen by Nidec America for use in a 24/7 server fan-housing. The challenge was to find a plastic that would quietly and steadily house a cooling fan for high-end servers used 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week at temperatures two-to-three times normal room ambient levels. After 18 months of product testing, Nidec America Corporation, a world leader in cooling fan technologies, selected Solvay Advanced Polymers Llc’s Amodel polyphthalamide (PPA) over two competing products. 'Any of the candidate materials we tested for the six-inch square fan housing would have worked if we only considered room temperature operation,' said John W. Hoover, director of engineering for Nidec. However, he said cooling fans in high-end servers must be capable of operating 24/7 at rotational speeds of 5000 revolutions per minute in continuous temperatures in the range of 140-160F. 'At that temperature and speed, Amodel PPA was selected for the fan housing because it maintains the structural integrity of the fan and avoids resonance under all operating conditions. The natural frequency of this material at 140F is above the excitation frequency,' Hoover said. The Amodel material used by Nidec for its new, spacing-saving TA600DC fan housing is a 33% glass-reinforced grade of PPA resin with a UL-94 V-O flammability rating. It was developed specifically for connector applications that require compatibility with both infrared and vapour phase soldering operations typically used in the electronics industry, as well as for other flame resistant applications requiring excellent electrical and high temperature performance. The resin processes readily using conventional injection moulding equipment and methods. It offers high flow and short moulding cycles. The processing window is relatively broad, and mould temperatures as low as 150F can be used. Nidec Corporation is an aggressively energetic company dedicated to worldwide leadership in motion and drive technology. The company, with headquarters Kyoto, Japan, commands a dominate share of the global market for hard disk drive (HDD) spindle motors. It also manufactures reliable, high-performance cooling fans and blowers for electronic equipment, a broad range of small, precision brushless DC motors and mid-size motors for automotive power steering systems and other applications. Nidec America is the US-based design, manufacturing, sales and customer support arm of the company with ISO9001-registered manufacturing facilities in Torrington, Connecticut, and a sales, design and administrative centre at Norwood, Massachusetts. Its cooling fan test facilities for air flow, acoustic, and reliability parameters in Torrington are available to customers seeking to solve application problems or to investigate new possibilities in product design. http://www.solvayadvancedpolymers.com
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