This article presents a detailed investigation of the three-dimensional flow field produced by a small centrifugal fan used for cooling of electronic components, for instance, in the automotive industry. A particle image velocimetry (PIV) system captured numerous cross sections of the fan jet for analysis of velocity distribution and jet development. General parameters, such as the spreading rate, and flow specifics, such as the full width at half maximum contours in planes parallel to the fan outlet and the jet's rotation rate, were thus evaluated. In addition, constant temperature anemometry enabled a thorough investigation of the flow field at the fan's outflow port. Hot-wire measurements complement the PIV results by providing the power spectral density of the turbulent kinetic energy at several locations. Our results demonstrate that the cross-flow profile at the fan outlet consists of two counter-rotating vortices. This leads to a jet with a nearly elliptical, rotating cross section, which does not propagate in a direction perpendicular to the outlet plane. Several aspects of these distinctive flow features are evaluated and presented to provide both fluid mechanics and heat transfer engineers with (i) data on the air jet produced by a small centrifugal fan and (ii) reference data for computational fluid dynamics simulations. Despite complex flow development in the near field of the jet and the nonaxisymmetric jet contour in the intermediate field, our results are in good agreement with published data on axisymmetric jets in terms of spreading rate and the development of turbulence spectra observed in the intermediate field.
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