Mercedes W11 Speculation Thread

[Just_a_fan]

that conduct heat 10,000X better than water

I'd like to see the evidence for that claim. Sounds like pub talk to me.

[izzy]

that conduct heat 10,000X better than water

I'd like to see the evidence for that claim. Sounds like pub talk to me.

It's extreme isn't it. It's from their website so i suppose probably some theoretical thing about those individual particles, then they come over a bit coy about how many times better the whole fluid is

[SiLo]

Yeah if it was 10,000X for the fluid as a whole they would be inundated with people trying to purchase the product.

[Morteza]

https://twitter.com/MercedesAMGF1/statu ... 1917221888

[jumpingfish]

Is it a W09 hidden under the blanket

[dans79]

that conduct heat 10,000X better than water

I'd like to see the evidence for that claim. Sounds like pub talk to me.

It's extreme isn't it. It's from their website so i suppose probably some theoretical thing about those individual particles, then they come over a bit coy about how many times better the whole fluid is

It's been a long time since I've had to think about fundamental physics, and i haven't had an y coffee yet today. However, I think part of the issue might be people mistaking thermal conductivity for specific heat. thermal conductivity is the ability to transfer heat. specific heat is the ability of a material to store heat. Usually if a material has high thermal conductivity, it usually has low specific heat. Graphene has high thermal conductivity.

What you want is the liquid coolant to have high specific heat so it can soak up heat in the engine, and then transfer it to air flowing through the radiators. Coating the radiators in Graphene, or making them completely out of it would be a benefit (same goes for the engine). I can't see how Graphene in the coolant would be a benefit.

[Big Tea]

I'd like to see the evidence for that claim. Sounds like pub talk to me.

It's extreme isn't it. It's from their website so i suppose probably some theoretical thing about those individual particles, then they come over a bit coy about how many times better the whole fluid is

It's been a long time since I've had to think about fundamental physics, and i haven't had an y coffee yet today. However, I think part of the issue might be people mistaking thermal conductivity for specific heat. thermal conductivity is the ability to transfer heat. specific heat is the ability of a material to store heat. Usually if a material has high thermal conductivity, it usually has low specific heat. Graphene has high thermal conductivity.

What you want is the liquid coolant to have high specific heat so it can soak up heat in the engine, and then transfer it to air flowing through the radiators. Coating the radiators in Graphene, or making them completely out of it would be a benefit (same goes for the engine). I can't see how Graphene in the coolant would be a benefit.

The whole cooling system as one huge radiating fin a funny shape air cooled.

[MtthsMlw]

Is it a W09 hidden under the blanket

I think so

[izzy]

It's been a long time since I've had to think about fundamental physics, and i haven't had an y coffee yet today. However, I think part of the issue might be people mistaking thermal conductivity for specific heat. thermal conductivity is the ability to transfer heat. specific heat is the ability of a material to store heat. Usually if a material has high thermal conductivity, it usually has low specific heat. Graphene has high thermal conductivity.

What you want is the liquid coolant to have high specific heat so it can soak up heat in the engine, and then transfer it to air flowing through the radiators. Coating the radiators in Graphene, or making them completely out of it would be a benefit (same goes for the engine). I can't see how Graphene in the coolant would be a benefit.

yes great point. i wonder if they use the graphene particles to speed up transfer into and out of the liquid? As opposed to across the substance like 'a conductor' normally is. That could have a similar effect to a greater specific heat, as they could flow it faster

Looking at https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/spec ... d_391.html water actually has a greater specific heat than almost any common material, only ammonia has more, perhaps they dissolve a bit of ammonia in it too? Or something secret...

[63l8qrrfy6]

that conduct heat 10,000X better than water

I'd like to see the evidence for that claim. Sounds like pub talk to me.

In practical solutions the concentration of graphene is tiny. There's a few papers that have measured improvement of over 50% in the overall heat transfer coefficient at the expense of large pressure drops of about 28%.
These figures vary wildly with concentration though.

As it stands I suspect that the same effect can be achieved by running good old water at higher flowrates.

[atanatizante]

I'd like to see the evidence for that claim. Sounds like pub talk to me.

It's extreme isn't it. It's from their website so i suppose probably some theoretical thing about those individual particles, then they come over a bit coy about how many times better the whole fluid is

It's been a long time since I've had to think about fundamental physics, and i haven't had an y coffee yet today. However, I think part of the issue might be people mistaking thermal conductivity for specific heat. thermal conductivity is the ability to transfer heat. specific heat is the ability of a material to store heat. Usually if a material has high thermal conductivity, it usually has low specific heat. Graphene has high thermal conductivity.

What you want is the liquid coolant to have high specific heat so it can soak up heat in the engine, and then transfer it to air flowing through the radiators. Coating the radiators in Graphene, or making them completely out of it would be a benefit (same goes for the engine). I can't see how Graphene in the coolant would be a benefit.

"FlexeGRAPH has developed nano-fluids with graphene as the active ingredient. FlexeGRAPH nano-fluids feature suspended graphene particles that conduct heat 10,000X better than water. This provides a significant improvement in thermal conductivity over standard liquid coolants and has applications across many industries., according to their site: https://flexegraph.com/

They also say their new coolant allows up to 60% improved heat exchange compared with market-leading materials.

[subcritical71]

They also say their new coolant allows up to 60% improved heat exchange compared with market-leading materials.

No offense, but they could also put 1000% and still be correct. It’s the ‘up to’ words that stand out to me. My broadband connection is “up to” 1 Gbps, I don’t need any fingers or toes to tell you how many times I’ve hit 1 Gbps, or anywhere close to that, in a speed test (the number is 0). I may have missed it but I can’t find on their website any companies who have been named as using it. For such a breakthrough to not have public adoption, and I’m not looking at just Motorsport, seems like this may be more snake oil and marketing. I tend to fall on the pessimistic side of things like this so only time will tell. If it’s the breakthrough technology they say it is why the slow adoption.

[zibby43]

Anybody with connections to either factory hearing any general rumblings out of the Silver Arrows camp?

[63l8qrrfy6]

Regarding graphene nanofluids:

The Honda F1 paper has a chapter called 'Research on coolant using nano additives and heavy water'. Their finding was that for the coolant flow velocities required in F1 the pumping losses were too high to justify the increase in overall heat transfer coefficient.

While Honda have only tested carbon nanotubes and aluminium oxides, the few papers available online seem to suggest the same drawbacks for graphene additives. As a reference, for 2 to 5°C reduction in cylinder head temperature the engine output had dropped by 4 to 8 kW due to the high coolant viscosity.

My prediction is that we won't be hearing of flexegraph in F1 anytime soon.

[Morteza]