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CeraDyna
 A New Era for Cooling Fan
Retrospecting to the history we should be able to realize the amazing impact of new materials in various fields of applications. The discovery of semiconductor brought forth the era of electronic industry and led the change of our life style. The development of heat resistant materials like engineering ceramics broke the power and life limits of traditional engines for jets and autos. Today, through our R&D efforts, ARX proudly announces the successful development of ceramic bearing system for mini cooling fan application, a breakthrough for fan and a new thoughts for fan industry.
 Problems in Noise and Life? This is the Fan You Need!
Noise and life have been two major issues when using fans for cooling your system. Because noise, especially abnormal noise, makes you annoying and fidgety; and life of fan makes you worry about the performance and reliability of your system. What is the major source of the two? It's bearing system.
Voice of Customer
 We always try to satisfy the need of our customers. We have been striving to solve the noise and life problems of conventional cooling fans. The development of ARX CeraDyna fan is your solution! The U.S. patented application (patent No. US6.254.348 B1) utilizes the improved ZrO2 engineering ceramics for the bearing system. ZrO2 engineering ceramics has the advantages of wear, heat, chemical resistant. It can be shaped and machined precisely and easily. Owing to its superior material characteristics, the bearing system has passed CSIST's rigorous test, which showed ever-long life of our CeraDyna fan. The perfect fitting of the bearing system results in quiet and smooth operation. ARX CeraDyna fan has been highly appreciated by our customers since the introduction from the end of 2001. The application of the new technology changes your thought, and it is what you need!
Switching to Ceramics
Five years ago, ARX realized that the IT industry was posing new demands on fan makers, and the company began to develop its own technology, taking advantage of the properties of ceramic materials.
After years of research and development, ARX launched its first generation of ceramic bearing systems, featuring a ceramic shaft and a high-precision alloy sleeve bearing. This arrangement proved to offer much better quality than a copper sleeve bearing.The ceramic shaft is very precisely machined, with a very fine surface texture, well in advance of the traditional steel shaft.
ARX launched it's A series of Ceradyna brand fans late in 2001, and this year the company
plans to launch its Ceradyna C series, which feature a combination of ceramic shaft and ceramic bearing. This combination offers very durable and smooth operation, at the same or slightly less cost than a two-bearing system, while making less noise.For ARX, the ceramic design approach has been a success, with a very positive market response, and the company has managed to increase market share. "More and more people are looking into ceramic technology. Ceramic materials offer many advantages. They are very durable and resistant to heat and humidity." - Excerpt from EuroTrade
 Market Acceptance
ARX can look at market acceptance of its products both internally and externally. Internally, the proportion of ceramic fans sold by ARX, as compared with sales of its traditional fan products, has increased. The company's ceramic Ceradyna brand fans now account for some 75 percent of sales, and the traditional fans for the other 25 percent.Towards the end of this year, and going into 2004, ARX expects the ceramic fan products to grow to 90 percent of sales volume. "More and more customers are now asking for Ceradyna fans, because they have seen these products proven in the market, over the last couple of years." Ceradyna fans, in both the A and the C series, now have an increasing market acceptance, and the overall sales volume, at ARX, is rocketing. "This year I expect 100 percent growth over last year, for ceramic fans. It is a very promising technology, and both our customers and ourselves can benefit." - Excerpt from EuroTrade
Why Ceramic Bearing
ARX R&D believes ball bearing is not the only choice for high end cooling fan. Through years of research and development, ARX proudly gives birth of the ceramic bearing solution for cooling fan to -
- Provide alternative to traditional bearing system
- Provide equivalent or better life expectancy
- Provide equivalent or better reliability
- Provide Cost effective solution
- Simplify fan structure
- Reduce noise from bearing system
- Reduce the complexity of fan assembly
- Increase the yield rate of fan production
 The Advantages of Zirconia Based Ceramics
Zirconia based ceramics have evolved to the stage where diversified design of microstructures and attributes are within the power of engineer and designers. Varying its control of composition, fabrication route, thermal treatment and final machining, Zirconia has provided hundreds of successful cases in replacing traditional materials as robust and cost effective solutions.
- High hardness
- High wear resistance
- Low thermal expansion
- Low conductivity
- Chemical Inertness
- Good for precision machining
ARX Improved Ceramics
 ARX is always seeking for better. The processes developed from raw material, molding, sintering to final machining have gone through experiment after experiment to make the bearing the best.
- Employing the state-of-the-art nanotechnology
- Partially Stabilized Zirconia (PSZ), which well disperses the tetragonal precipitates within cubic morphology
- The transformation toughened zirconia is characterized by high strength and fracture toughness
- Precision injection molding for forming
- Good for creating finely polished surfaces
ARX Ceramics Manufacturing Processes
ARX has its full capability from forming to final machining. The raw material is made by deliberately mixing all the necessary ingredients with ceramic powder of less than 300 nano for molding. Precision injection molding process is developed to make ceramic shafts and bearing of various shapes and dimensions. The debinding and sintering processes are then followed to make the final shape and the characteristics needed. The two processes are finely controlled such that all the binders are removed smoothly step by step, and the microstructure and the grain size can be produced and maintained for best strength and hardness. In addition, the perfect combination of molding and sintering processes makes the need of machining to the minimum. This is achieved by the “near-net-shape” technology such that there is no need to remove a lot of hard-to-machined material and therefore the post machining process can be conducted in a very productive way.Upon the completion of the pre-forming process, the shaft and bearing are moved forward for post machining process. Various machining processes are employed depending on the functional need of each part designed. Either the need to make the dimension, the geometry or the required surface texture can be achieved.
ARX Ceramics Research and Inspection
ARX ceramic products have gone through thorough investigation from different perspectives. The ceramic laboratory and quality control are equipped with necessary high precision instruments for verifying the properties and characteristics of the material made and parts produced. These high precision instruments are capable of checking and reflecting the quality of the products from material and machining aspects, such as the microstructure, strength, hardness, roundness, roughness, etc.
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