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PAPST Fans Take on the Daunting Challenge of Cooling Jordan's Grand Formula One Grand Prix Racing Cars

PAPST fans are taking to Formula One racing with the Jordans Grand Prix racing team who have selected Papst fans to cool the high performance Formula One engines used by Damon hill and Ralf Schumacher. The fans have already made their successful debut on the starting grid with Hill and Schumacher at the recent Brazil, Argentina and San Marino Formula One World Championship races and shortly at Barcelona and Monaco.

More used to cooling electronic equipment such as racks and enclosures, PAPST accepted the daunting challenge of cooling the powerful 670 bhp Mugen-Honda Formula One engines used by the Jordans team while they are on the starting grid. The problem was solved using two standard PAPST 6-inch AC fans which are fitted to a special pod that blows cool air into the engine compartment while the cars are on the starting grid. Without the fans, the engines would overheat before the race even began - the Formula One racing cars are not fitted with an integral cooling fan to save weight. In extremely hot conditions, the fans can even blow air across dry ice for extra cooling. The heat and vibration of Formula One racing especially on the starting grid in hot locations such as Brazil makes this one of the most demanding applications for cooling fans.

Interestingly enough, the fans are exactly the same 7400 series AC models already widely used by equipment designers for cooling a wide variety of electronic equipment and racks. PAPST's team including Brian Putland - MD, Peter Wooley - Business Development Manager and Trevor Miller - Product Marketing Manager recently paid a visit to Jordan's Grand Prix facility at their Silverstone headquarters to see the cars and fans in action.

"The fans are not specials in any way and it will interest our customers to know that the same fans they are already using in their electronic equipment are exactly the same as those used to cool Formula One racing cars driven by Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher" said PAPST's MD Brian Putland. "While most users do not expect our fans to operate in the kind of heat, vibration and abuse of Formula One, it is significant for them to know that they can survive in such a tough environment" he added.

According to Jordan's Technical Director "We selected PAPST's six inch AC fans as the most simple and bullet-proof way to prevent our highly sophisticated and expensive engines from overheating on the grid. We found PAPST's solution gave us not only the high airflow and cooling power to cope with the massive heat output of these engines but also the high reliability to ensure we got off the starting grid with no problems" he said.

Last year, the Jordans' team came fifth in the Formula One World Championship. This year with their young flamboyant team including Hill and Schumacher, the team hopes to do even better - and PAPST fans will be helping them stay cool in the process.

PAPST is the UK and European number one in equipment cooling fans with the widest range of both AC and DC models as well as intelligent VARIOFAN and thermal management systems. Headquartered in the Black Forest in Germany, the company pioneered external rotor motors, electronic commutation and more recently intelligent temperature controlled fans with thermal management. The UK operation of PAPST plc is located in a modern facility in Andover which provides manufacturing, sales and technical support services including the use of sophisticated test facilities which customers can make use of to test fan performance, noise etc. under a variety of operating conditions.