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Fan Family Sorter

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About This MicroSim

The sorter deals fifteen current Twin City Fan product lines, one card at a time, in a shuffled order. Each card shows a model designation and a short description of the fan: the wheel or impeller, the housing, the mounting and sometimes the application. The cards never name the family. You decide whether each line is Centrifugal, Axial or Mixed flow from the clues about how air passes through the impeller.

Several cards are look-alikes on purpose. A tubular inline centrifugal fan sits next to a tubeaxial in the same kind of round tube; a centrifugal roof exhauster and an axial roof ventilator both sit on a roof; two lab exhaust fans belong to two different families. The relevant clue is always the airflow path through the impeller: in along the shaft and out at a right angle (centrifugal), in and out along the shaft (axial), or out on a diagonal (mixed flow). Housing shape, roof location and application name are distractors.

Each placement is final. The card locks into the bin you chose, is marked correct or incorrect, and the reason appears beneath it. Only first placements count toward the score.

How to Use

  1. Read the face-up card and press Centrifugal, Axial or Mixed flow (or the keys 1, 2 or 3).
  2. Read the feedback under the card. A correct placement reads "✓ Correct: family." and an incorrect one reads "✗ This one is family.", each followed by the reason. Correct cards get a solid green border and incorrect ones a dashed red border, so the verdict never depends on color alone; screen readers hear the verdict too.
  3. Press Next card (or Enter) to turn up the next card. The placed card stays in its bin as a chip marked with a check or a cross.
  4. After the fifteenth card, press Show summary. The summary shows the score as "Correct: n of 15", the mastery line, a per-family tally and every misplaced card with its correct family and reason. Use More misses to page through a long list.
  5. Press Sort again to reshuffle all fifteen cards and reset the score.

Keyboard: keys 1, 2 and 3 place the card in Centrifugal, Axial or Mixed flow; Enter (or N) turns up the next card. Tab reaches every button, and Enter or Space presses the focused one.

Data label: "Source: Twin City Fan product catalog, tcf.com, retrieved 2026-10-08", at the bottom left of the drawing, with the keyboard hint when it fits.

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Lesson Plan

Learning Objective

The learner will differentiate fifteen Twin City Fan product lines into the centrifugal, axial and mixed flow families from a short description of each, correctly placing at least 13 of 15 on the first placement (Bloom: Analyze, verb: differentiate).

Audience

New application engineers, inside and outside sales staff, manufacturer's representatives, distributors and plant staff who need to identify fans by family. This is an adult professional-development activity.

Duration

10 to 15 minutes for one sort, plus 5 minutes of discussion.

Prerequisites

From Chapter 4: fan family, centrifugal fan, axial fan, mixed flow fan, scroll housing, tubular housing, guide vanes, unhoused centrifugal fans (plenum and plug types), inline centrifugal fan, panel fan, power roof ventilator, centrifugal roof exhauster, roof ventilator, wall mounted fan and laboratory fume exhaust fan.

Activities

  1. First sort (5 to 8 min): Each learner sorts all fifteen cards alone, without notes. Mastery is 13 of 15 on the first placement.
  2. Diagnose the misses (3 to 5 min): For each misplaced card in the summary, the learner names the clue that misled them: housing shape, roof location or application name.
  3. Discussion (5 min): Compare the look-alike pairs. Why are TSL and TD both in a round tube but in different families? Why are DCRD and TUD both roof fans but in different families? Why do BCIFE and TVIFE, both induced flow lab exhaust fans, land in different families?
  4. Second sort (optional): Learners who scored below 13 review the chapter sections on tubular housings and power roof ventilators, then press Sort again.

Common Misconceptions Addressed

  • Any fan in a tubular housing is axial (TSL, QSL and QCLB are not).
  • Any roof fan, or any power roof ventilator, is centrifugal (TUD is axial).
  • Lab exhaust fans are their own family (BCIFE is centrifugal; TVIFE is mixed flow).
  • A fan without a housing cannot be centrifugal (plenum and plug fans are).

Assessment

  • Score of 13 or more of 15 on the first sort shows mastery; the summary reads "Mastery reached."
  • For each miss, the learner can state the airflow-path clue on the card that identifies the correct family.
  • Follow-up question: given a new model description that names only a "round tube" and "vanes," what extra information would you need to name the family?

References

  1. Twin City Fan, current product catalog pages on tcf.com (products: centrifugal fans, plenum fans, plug fans, inline centrifugal fans, axial fans, wall mounted fans, roof ventilators, centrifugal roof and wall exhausters, mixed flow fans, laboratory and fume exhaust fans), retrieved 2026-10-08 - source of the model designations and their family groupings.
  2. Twin City Fan, FanPedia: The Fan & Blower Encyclopedia (2021), pp. 4-8, 17 and 32 - source of the housing and impeller descriptions.
  3. Chapter 4: Centrifugal, Axial and Mixed Flow Fans - the chapter this sorter closes.