Mercedes Power Unit Hardware & Software

[PhillipM]

Carbon piping is not an extreme solution, it's been used for a long time, I have some carbon coolant and intake piping on my racer, and it's only worth about 10k in parts.

[nokivasara]

Carbon piping doesn't sound extreme but maybe the extreme lays in how thin the pipe is?

Or maybe it's just something they blame on, kind of like Suzuki in MotoGP when they first started using 4-stroke engines and they always had DNF's, they always said it was an electrical fault.

[avatar]

No, probably just the system pressure from the valve in the header tank that was lost if it was a hairline fracture (which we can assume it was, since the car didn't loose much water), so you would just drop the boiling point.

OK, thanks.

Hence people surmised that the coolant couldn't have hit boiling point or you'd get significant coolant loss through the crack (from steam pressure) I guess.

[PlatinumZealot]

The engine must be extremly cold running or the whole thing is a lie. Even a small crack for an idling street car can lead to massive loss of coolant and overheating much mess a crack in a 750hp engine. And Zero water pressure sound to strange to be real. That "zero" must be dummy number to throw at the media or Something very fishy is going on over at Merc.. Carbon pipe cracking.. A carbon pipe just carrying hot water? I don't buy it Toto.

[taperoo2k]

Al these failures, it makes me wonder. Is Mercedes still that much better then the rest? Or was just the turbo sizing done right from the start, the early introduction of Jet ignition and tuning to chassis to front running?

More like a sign that Mercedes are pushing to the limits of their PU design, as it's taken Ferrari time to catch up with Renault and Honda in the rear view mirrors.

And now since the other are catching up, they need extreme solutions like carbon piping?

That's not an extreme solution, more than likely done for weight saving/distribution reasons.

[Edis]

Al these failures, it makes me wonder. Is Mercedes still that much better then the rest? Or was just the turbo sizing done right from the start, the early introduction of Jet ignition and tuning to chassis to front running?

More like a sign that Mercedes are pushing to the limits of their PU design, as it's taken Ferrari time to catch up with Renault and Honda in the rear view mirrors.

And now since the other are catching up, they need extreme solutions like carbon piping?

That's not an extreme solution, more than likely done for weight saving/distribution reasons.

It's quite rational to make pipes in carbon fibre. F1 teams already got everything they need to make carbon fiber parts, and the tooling for a part is cheap to produce. So with some cheap tooling you can produce pipe shapes that are very complex (for tight packaging), and would be a lot more expensive to make in metal.

[Webber2011]

Lewis' engine ran on zero water pressure for the last 16 laps in Russia. Of course ambient pressure water is a sign of either pump failure or some sort of back pressure valve failure. The key thing to take from this is that the water did not boil at ambient, meaning these new engines can run at very low temperatures and the radiators are a little over-designed.

Aren't they using some hightech waterless coolant, which has a much higher boiling point?

Remember the gold fluid spewing out of Fernando's car in the Australian crash ?

This is what I've been told the McLaren Honda uses, so I guess all Teams would have the same.
http://www.evanscoolants.com.au/questions-and-answers/

Although I'm not sure if the stuff we mere mortals can purchase is exactly the same as an F1 team would have available ?

Either way, 190c is a pretty impressive boiling point and no water means no steam, so it runs under much less pressure, even when very hot.

There's some good links on the page so check it out guys

[PhillipM]

I think that's just a bit of sly marketing BS on evan's part - afaik no team uses it. With good reason.

[Webber2011]

I think that's just a bit of sly marketing BS on evan's part - afaik no team uses it. With good reason.

I'm no expert but I'm led to believe this is indeed what Honda use, by someone far more knowlegable than me
I've seen no other explanation for the gold fluid from Alonso's car on the forum yet.

I'm only guessing that others use it as well though.

Why do you say that no team uses it mate, and what is the good reason ?

[PhillipM]

Well, it's terrible for both heat capacity and transfer for one, and it takes more power to pump for two.
I know the Merc in the Manor isn't using it for certain. They do however use a strongly coloured UV dye for picking up leaks quickly on inspections.

[Webber2011]

Well, it's terrible for both heat capacity and transfer for one, and it takes more power to pump for two.
I know the Merc in the Manor isn't using it for certain. They do however use a strongly coloured UV dye for picking up leaks quickly on inspections.

Ok, thanks for that.

Like I said I don't know, and doubt tbh, if the actual "Evans" branded stuff is exactly what the F1 Teams would use.
I'd imagine they would have something far superior to what we the public can just tip into our daily driver.

It does seem to answer a lot of the questions I've seen here though.

[PhillipM]

Without going to liquid metals water with a bit of surfactant is about the best coolant you're going to get anyway, it'll just be modified to cope with the required boiling point given the cap pressure limits and whatever the design temp for the engine is (was ~130*c a few years back, might be higher now)

[Brian Coat]

From publicly available data (patents, MSDSs) it's pretty quick to ascertain that Evans coolant is mostly ... drum roll ... ethylene glycol and propylene glycol aka anti-freeze.

Not really applicable to F1?

(Warning: may also contain snake oil)

[ringo]

There aren't much liquids out there with better thermal properties than water.
I have once suggested the use of a Fluoride, years ago, however it may be corrosive at the concentration required to give superior cooling, and it's density and viscosity is another concern.
I agree that it doesn't get much better than water.

[Webber2011]

What would they be adding to the water to make it that gold colour then guys ?

Is that also just something to make leaks easier to detect ?