beelsebob wrote:she_spools_180 wrote:Being only a recent graduate of engineering, I feel almost not worthy of posting on this forum with my limited understanding, However:
I missed the part about how you suggest to heat the air. Whether it is using a heat exchanger heated by coolant or whatever, or an exhaust pipe for example - specifically NOT using exhaust gasses, as this has been established that it is not allowed by the rules - just the heat from the pipe/hot surface itself.
Taking the heat exchanger (radiator) for example, I would think that the flow of air through the fins of the radiator would be rather restricted and therefore slowed down, negating any benefit of heating the air and increasing its velocity?
Although I do not know much about the passing air flow properties of an F1 radiator...
Restricting air flow speeds it up, not slows it down – again – think what a turbo jet does – big intake, lots of cool, slow flowing air – small exhaust higher volume of hot air, ejected extremely fast through the tiny exit.
Apologies for spamming the thread a bit, but, I want to understand this.
I see, so you are suggesting that gaps in the radiator through which the passing air flows, act as a reduction in sectional area, therefore speeding up the flow?
I did not imagine it to be possible to design a radiator that would reduce the sectional area without disturbing the flow (ie, by making it extremely aerodynamic). But this is just my own visual interpretation, and I guess it must be.
The only other issue I see, is that the sectional area directly after the radiator would have to be very similar, to that of the effective sectional area through the radiator, which would be difficult to do, as I would imagine, the air flows out of the radiator over a larger overall area, and would need to be 'collected' by a larger area. Because, that would mean the flow would slow once again, losing energy. I hope this makes sense.
I hope that my interpretation of what is going on, is not too far off the mark, and can be easily corrected.