Wind Power in F1

[alelanza]

xpensive, if you find amazing that there is so much answers, you can delete yours, there'll be one less.

Haha, best reply on this thread, you win best come back of the day

[Crystalix]

xpensive, may I remember you that yesterday you wanted to put a bigger turbine on the top of the air intake ? And don't say it was ironical !

Fantasic idea you have there Crystalix, but why limit this to the sidepods, wouldn't a larger windmill on top of the air-intake behind the driver be more efficient?

Then after some persons said the turbine won't give any advantage you critize me ?

I can't believe it

[xpensive]

Sorry about that Crystalix, but suggesting a windmill on top of the engine-scoop was ironic, believe it or not.

[kilcoo316]

The idea wouldn't be worth pursing at all. The power it would produce would be very low, and it would be tapping energy at the worst places of the lap (even if I think its not going to be taking an awful lot of power away from the car). Better to grab power under braking than when trying to get to Vmax.


However, it does raise a couple of interesting points.

1. You DO want to decelerate the flow infront of the radiator to reduce drag across the rad.

2. Turbulence (at least on a small scale) is prefferable to laminar flow for better heat exchange within the duct flow.



As well as another possibility - how strong is the convection flow (due to thermal gradient) within an F1 radiator? There is an awful lot of thermal energy 'lost'

Would it be worth trying to tap into that - a 'turbo' in the cooling system?

Effectively a mini power plant instead of being coal, oil or gas fired, is run off the waste heat of an IC engine.

[slimjim8201]

Hum. I'm a physic student and it was just an idea. Wind mills in the desert are working well, "they get someting for nothing", as you said.
Nevertheless, I understand what you explained to me.

But why can't I say the same thing with KERS : the extra power is given by brake-energy, given by engine (no engine, no velocitie, no braking) and so we are in the same kind of circle...

First off, Lausanne is a beautiful place! I've been lucky enough to travel through there on business a few times. I make a point to always stop and get some coffee overlooking the lake.


I can understand why you would see similarities between your turbine/generator idea and a KERS system. One KEY difference between the two, however. A KERS system is recovering energy that would otherwise be thrown away as heat. You are correct in that the power harnessed by KERS did originate from the engine. In essence energy from the engine that would be thrown away as heat through the brakes is converted back into usable electrical power.

Perhaps I have misunderstood your proposed application, but if turbines could be used under braking ONLY, when the engine is not producing any power, their function would be much the same as KERS. Harnessing the energy of moving the car through the air (or moving the air around the car if you like) to create electrical power. The drag induced would have a braking effect, and the overall effect would be like a braking system based KERS.

To use this system under non-braking circumstances would be 100% ineffective. It would be much like using the brakes to charge up the KERS system while accelerating. Even if the system were 100% efficient, as stated in my previous post, ALL of the car's locomotive energy comes from the engine originally, it cannot come from anywhere else, and converting the braking energy back into electrical power does not increase the net power (not possible)

The situation under braking is different because at that moment in time, the engine is not producing any power, yet the car has a LOT of potential energy that will normally be wasted through the brakes or aero drag. Any system that can harness the car's built up potential energy will NOT increase the overall power created by the engine, but it WILL decrease the overall power created by the engine that is lost.

[tahadar]

i made a small scale wind turbine (0.7 m diameter) for my 2nd year project at uni and the first major issue that comes to mind is the tip speed ratio of the turbine at 300 kmh would be huge. that will give you extremely turbulent air being fed to the radiators (loss of cooling), a very inefficient turbine (poor power coefficient) and an increase in drag. the theory behind recovering braking energy is more sound.

[xpensive]

Again I am so sorry, but when this whole thread is so childish and stupid I thought everybody was being ironic!

[G-Rock]

Who said F1 technology isn't transferable to the real world? With this concept, we can reduce our own personal energy consumption.
How about a hair dryer with a turbine fan attached to it. It would be like drying your hair for free. Or a recharging fan attached to your air conditioner or even one attached to your head to recharge your cell phone or iPod while jogging....or a flashlight with a solar panel infront of it so you can recharge your battery at night while going out to check on the cows.

I think you guys got taken for a ride by the Crystalix character. That was the dumbest concept I've ever heard of. A physics student, ya right!! You should maybe consider studying more and wasting less time on the internet or you're not going to make it in the real world.

[ISLAMATRON]

Hum. I'm a physic student and it was just an idea. Wind mills in the desert are working well, "they get someting for nothing", as you said.
Nevertheless, I understand what you explained to me.

But why can't I say the same thing with KERS : the extra power is given by brake-energy, given by engine (no engine, no velocitie, no braking) and so we are in the same kind of circle...

They take the energy from the environment... notice they are stationary and it is the wind that is moving whereas energy is used to move the car in the first place.

KERS is using energy that would otherwise be wasted as heat, that is what makes it useful and able to increase the overall efficiency of the system. But like someone else cleverly said, if your turbines were only deployed under braking yes they would be in the same category as KERS... energy recovery.

G-rock, respect yourself man, the kid came on here asking a question, no need to degrade him... we all started our knowledge base somewhere... what if somebody degraded you for asking "dunb" questions from childhood?

[machin]

Only way this would work is if the 'fans' (technically they would be 'turbines') could be deployed during braking and then retracted during acceleration.

Even better idea than retracting them (not my own I must add).... the turbines could be variable pitch... actuated hydraulically by the brake circuit... so the moment the driver hits the brakes the blade pitch would decrease, increasing drag, slowing the car and charging the battery/spinning the flywheel....

The advantage of this over a system which takes energy from the brakes is that it would have less effect on braking balance... especially if it broke mid way through the race and stopped working.....

Although the disadvantage is that you not only need a wind turbine to generate the power, you would also need a separate motor to put the power back in, whereas the current systems use one motor/generator to do both the collection and discharge of the energy.....

[xpensive]

I am with G-rock here, the initial-question is a 9th-grade level trick-question heard so many times before.

I am certain that Crystalix and his fellow students in Lausanne have a blast with the responses on this forum.

[machin]

Ignore the original post, enough people have explained the reality of the problem now (I like the analogy of comparing it to the current cars applying the brakes whilst accelerating to "charge" the KERS system as explained by someone else above)...

The idea of an "air-brake" (i.e. retractable or controllable pitch turbine) that is used to charge the KERS instead of losing the energy as heat in the brake discs is still an option and worthy of discussion.

[casper]

slightly OT, but here's the a civilian application of KERS in commercial fleet vehicles.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22328/

A Dutch based company, e-Traction, http://www.e-traction.nl/, manufactures buses that uses in-wheel motors mounted in the rear wheels. Diesel engine is used only to charge a battery. Couple this to a biodiesel fuel and its carbon footprint will be less than that of a normal diesel compression engine.

[theoracle]

Ignore the original post, enough people have explained the reality of the problem now (I like the analogy of comparing it to the current cars applying the brakes whilst accelerating to "charge" the KERS system as explained by someone else above)...

The idea of an "air-brake" (i.e. retractable or controllable pitch turbine) that is used to charge the KERS instead of losing the energy as heat in the brake discs is still an option and worthy of discussion.

a technically much simpler solution would be to deflect (or allow) the airflux into special braking ducts where the turbines are lodged.
the air would be directed through the alternative path only under braking conditions and the extent of the deflection/aperture would be tied to speed.
an additional point to explore is that the exiting air could be directed differently under braking than under accelleration, though i am not sure this could be exploited tough.

of course under current rules all these solutions would likely be illegal, but that's besides the point