F1 Cooling outlet placement

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MIKEY_!
7
Joined: 10 Jul 2011, 03:07

F1 Cooling outlet placement

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Hi,

Can someone explain why teams place their radiator cooling outlets where they do? I have been away from F1 watching for a few years (since 2012) and back then most teams (IIRC) placed their outlets at the rear of the engine cover, so that hot (and I assume very turbulent) radiator exhaust passed through the monkey seat area. Now that I'm back I've noticed the teams mostly have their outlets fairly low, at the rear of the sidepod, just above the diffuser. Why the change? I have searched the other threads but information has mostly been conflicting.

Any help would be great, thanks in advance!

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DiogoBrand
73
Joined: 14 May 2015, 19:02
Location: Brazil

Re: F1 Cooling outlet placement

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I think it has a lot (if not all) to do with the engine regulations. Back then you had pretty much just the radiators and a few less significant bits to cool down. Now you have an ICE, intercoolers, ERS and so on to cool down. This wouldn't necessarily make for a change in the outlet placement, but rather on it's size.
The lower outlets, from my perspective, are down to the fact that now you have turbochargers, plenum, MGU-H and other bits that sit higher within the engine cover, not to mention the exhaust. So the higher part of the engine cover is almost completely obstructed. That way I don't think there would be an efficient way to let those gases out as high as they did before, therefore the outlets were lowered.
And maybe the exclusion of the beam wing also contributes to that fact, but how it would do that is beyond my small knowledge.

I hope I'm not talking complete BS, but I think that's pretty much it.

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