COOLING TECHNOLOGY
(Photo courtesy of AirFlow Truck Company.)
Horton’s WindMaster Revolution fan is designed to combine the attributes of axial-, mixed-
and radial-flow fans. It was originally developed for heavy-duty truck applications, but can
also be used in off-highway machinery.
FOSTERING
A REVOLUTION
Development of Horton’s newest fan and collaboration with
AKG aims to prompt “new way to think about cooling systems”
BY MIKE BREZONICK
Atthemostfundamentallevel, any revolution begins with a change in perception. It
starts with a new idea and ultimately
grows to significance with the addition
of time and allies.
While it might be purely coincidental, that’s essentially the same path
being followed by cooling systems
specialist Horton in the development
of its Revolution fan technology.
First publicly unveiled in Europe
last year, the WindMaster Revolution
is the newest — and easily the most
distinctive — in the company’s venerable WindMaster range of engine
cooling fans. Designed to combine
the attributes of axial-, mixed- and
radial-flow fans, the Revolution provides a 20% increase in airflow over
axial-flow fans, offers 40% smaller
depth dimensions and larger inlet
diameters than comparable radial-
flow fans, along with 15% greater
airflows and 30% smaller depths than
mixed-flow fans, according to Horton.
“The reason it was developed was
because of what was happening in the
truck market,” said Neal Shawaluk,
sales director for the Roseville, Minn.,
headquartered manufacturer. “With
EPA 2010 and Euro 6 emissions reg-
ulations, we saw customers demand-
ing more airflow and the restrictions
were getting to the point where axial
fan technology just wouldn’t do the
job. The fans would have to spin too
fast, take up too much power and be
too noisy as a result.”
Working with a European truck
manufacturer, Horton developed the
Revolution concept, intended to meld
the best features of the three different
fan configurations. “We went through
about 400 different iterations using
CFD, and the final design was a very
good solution for on-highway cool-
ing,” Shawaluk said. “Tier 4 happened
to come along at about the same
time and we saw the same sorts of
requirements, so it was obvious that
this technology would find a home in
off-highway applications as well.”
Another major step in the Revolution’s
evolution was taken late this spring
when Horton collaborated with radia-
tor supplier AKG to produce a com-
bined technology, advanced cool-
ing system targeting low-emissions
engines in both on-highway and off-
highway applications. A global manufac-
turer with its U.S. operations in Mebane,
N.C., AKG specializes in compact, high-
capacity cooling systems for engine
water, charge-air and oil. The combined
A cooperation between Horton and AKG has resulted in the development of a new cooling
module incorporating Horton’s WindMaster Revolution fan and AKG’s aluminum bar-plate
deep-core heat exchanger technology.
