"The most radical feature of the original car was its use of flat plate heat exchangers mounted flush to the surface of the bodywork in place of conventional water radiators. The absence of standard radiators allowed Murray to compensate somewhat for the large engine and fuel tanks and produce a relatively light design with a low frontal cross section (important to reduce drag).
"In practice the heat exchangers did not provide anything like enough cooling capacity, one of South African Murray’s rare design failures, and were replaced by more standard radiators in the nose of the car, similar to that of the BT45, compromising its aerodynamic efficiency."
Too bad it's eclipsed by the far more famous BT46B "fan car", I can't find any BT46 pics.
Edit: Oh hey here's a pic!
Last edited by joseff on 20 Apr 2009, 18:45, edited 1 time in total.
a heat sink is a material that transfers heat from something hot to an area that is not.
The chimneys in f1 cars act AS a heat sink, but obviously, is NOT a heat sink.
Again, thanks.
I was thinking of more of a series of pipes and tubes within a double floor that air passes between, not so much a radiator, but a place to hold the coolant in pipes exposed to fast moving air. For a reduction in radiator/sidepod size it could help and give the designers more flexibility within the rules.
Before I do anything I ask myself “Would an idiot do that?” And if the answer is yes, I do not do that thing. - Dwight Schrute
Giblet wrote:a heat sink is a material that transfers heat from something hot to an area that is not.
The chimneys in f1 cars act AS a heat sink, but obviously, is NOT a heat sink.
Again, thanks.
I was thinking of more of a series of pipes and tubes within a double floor that air passes between, not so much a radiator, but a place to hold the coolant in pipes exposed to fast moving air. For a reduction in radiator/sidepod size it could help and give the designers more flexibility within the rules.
The chimney wouldnt be the heatsink in that car the air would be... the Chimney is merely an exhaust port for the hot air... a way for it to be scavenged more efficiently. The Chimney does not get much hotter than the other body work in that area... it is not designed to absorb heat, it is not a working fluid.
Air passing thru pipes in a double floor might could add alot of drag, but if not it should be an idea to look into.
Joseff... thanks for the info on that car... off to do some more research on it now.
THe block shape radiator is pretty good. But i see that one can think out of the box in a way to modify that shape..
In such a way to:
1. Keep the same water capacity
2. Use the same materials to keep the strength
3. Keep the weight down.
4. Allow Air to pass more effectively over Most if not all of the fins.
5. Space constraints.
But what do you want as the advantage?
Lower weight? and lower Centre of gravity
This will be hard to achieve and to keep the requirements posted above..especially number 4. Because you will reduce the area over which fresh unheated air flows IF you lay the Radiator flat.
CAN you make a Radiator that beats the current ones that is the question In there is pretty small..
In a similar vein, what about using a Crower six stroke engine to dissipate heat? You'd only be able to carry maybe half as much fuel, but it mightn't matter since you're using the water for a power stroke anyway. If it carried enough heat away maybe you could have a bigger tank where the cooling rads used to be.
For joseff;
This has been discussed before on another thread, but nevertheless the "surface-cooled" BT46 was just a clever decoy, to further underline the need for the fan-cooled/ground-effect solution which it was intended for all along.
If you look closely at the pic, which is the ONLY known pic by the way, those "cooling-pads" are just attached directly to the aluminium-tub, no obvious sign of any spaghetti-tubing anywhere. Probably just made from styrofoam.
The thing never turned a wheel, why the fan-car, after being banned, was replaced by the radiator-cooled BT46B.
"I spent most of my money on wine and women...I wasted the rest"
xpensive wrote:For joseff;
This has been discussed before on another thread, but nevertheless the "surface-cooled" BT46 was just a clever decoy, to further underline the need for the fan-cooled/ground-effect solution which it was intended for all along.
If you look closely at the pic, which is the ONLY known pic by the way, those "cooling-pads" are just attached directly to the aluminium-tub, no obvious sign of any spaghetti-tubing anywhere. Probably just made from styrofoam.
The thing never turned a wheel, why the fan-car, after being banned, was replaced by the radiator-cooled BT46B.
I disagree, and believe the car was tested with surface radiators, but they were found lacking, and changed.
With the BT46 Gordon Murray brought back the pure trapezium shape in spite of the big tanks and with additional splitters behind the front wheels (that had got the task to stabilize the lateral air flow very similar to today´s deflectors). The arrow-shaped nose section with it´s conventional front wings looked very gracile, the properly drawn back was closed by a big rear wing. No radiator desturbed the aerodynamics, the original version of the BT46 had got heat exchangers for water and oil nearly covering the whole flanks. On the dash board the driver had got a liquid-crystal display available to show him the most important technical data when pressing a button. Also the lap times could be shown to him being transmitted via telemetry. For the first time a Grand Prix car had got carbon fibre brakes, only being available at the Concorde super sonic commercial aircraft in the non-military sector. Actually the monocoque of the BT46 consisted of rivetted and glued aluminum sheets, but for the first time also composite materials were used. These did not only make the chassis stiffer for better handling, it also made "the cockpit hard like concrete," as Niki Lauda declared with a certain pride in Austrian television ORF at the BT46´s race debut at Kyalami. Parmalat Brabham, as the team now publicly was called, had used the C-version of the BT45 in the first two 1978 Grand Prix of Argentine and Brazil, but at the race debut of the BT46, heat exchangers, LCD and telemetry were not onboard any longer. Officially these systems only had been deferred, but later Murray had to conceed, that the time had not been ready for those things. Actually the car still looked extraordinary good, but in the front there was a flat, but wide water radiator. http://www.research-racing.de/bt46-1.htm
Racing should be decided on the track, not the court room.
Only what I consider a reasonable assumption. The original BT46 was designed and built before the beginning of the 1978 season. The car was constructed with some new technologies. The surface radiator, an LCD dash, telemetry, and composite reinforcement in the chassis. On the first two races of the 1978 season, Brabahm fielded the previous year's car, the BT45-C. Then the BT46 was raced, but with the surface radiators, LCD, and telemetry removed. Nose mounted radiators replaced the chassis mounted surface radiators. From my perspective, I believe that Murray tried to introduce an innovative car with some unique technologies. The composite chassis was part of the evolution to today's carbon fiber tubs. The LCD and telemetry were immature, and the surface radiators a bust, and never seen again. Between the time the car is bolted together and the first race of the season, I cannot think of anyone who would not start it up and at least give the car a basic shakedown test. It was during this period where shortcomings were discovered. And naturally, changes were implimented.
Once the BT46 was racing, Murray turned his attention towards improving performance, and as history tells, the infamous fan car was invented. To me, all the timelines make sense, and the actions of the team are typical of what any team would do. The story of the BT46 also ties neatly into what was happening at Lotus. The team introduced the revolutionary ground effects Lotus 79. They showed up at the beginning of the season, and immediately started winning. Murray realized that this was the future, and did something similar, which resulted in the BT46B.
In my mental image of what transpired, I just do not see where Brabahm, with team principle Bernie Ecclestone, would piss away an entire season just to introduce a radical fan car, just to see it banned immediately after.
Racing should be decided on the track, not the court room.
