Wayne DR wrote:I would have guessed between 580 and 640 deg C varying with turbine efficiency. (The lower the temperature, the higher the MGU-H output is).
This is somewhat supported by the heat tint (temper) colour of the Ferrari turbo dump pipe of blue/dark blue (shown in photos from this weekend).
Colour - Temp (deg C)
pale yellow - 290
straw yellow - 340
dark yellow - 370
brown - 390
purple brown - 420
dark purple - 450
blue - 540
dark blue - 600
You have to watch out with these colors. These are for steel. The color is originating from thin film interference on the oxide scale that forms on the metal. Your basically looking at the thickness of the oxide scale. The exhaust systems likely are made from a superalloy like inconel which is much more oxidation resistant and thus give a wrong indication.
I don't know for these ICE's but for the old V8 engines I would guess that the temperature is 900C-1000 at the manifold. If you see them on the dyno you can see the exhaust appears translucent (it is not really translucent but you get these weird cold shadowing effects). That happens in this temperature range.
The temperature then drops off. It is clear from the Mercedes picures that they go to greath lengths to insulate their exhaust so they will experience very little drop-off.
Last year Renault and Ferrari had their exhaust unshielded so there the temperature loss will be much greater. Don't know if that is still the case.
If you look at the arrangement then I think you can say that the Mercedes was running their turbo hotter than others (I still think that is part of their advantage). Probably Honda copied that strategy, so 1000 degrees seems possible, although because of material limitations I don't see how they can get much hotter than that.
For the other engine builders I don't know. Last year they seemed to run their turbos colder but I don't know what they have done for this year.