Batshit idea...

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beelsebob
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Batshit idea...

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So, hot EBDs might be banned because they involve moving things for no purpose other than driving aero parts... This got me thinking, why not do something similar, but with no moving parts...

Anyone up for a design of F1 car with a pulse jet engine on board?

You'd probably have to go a long way out of your way to convince the FIA that it wasn't driving the car forwards, and hence didn't count as being an extra method of propultion, but I wonder if this could be made to work...

tommylommykins
tommylommykins
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Re: Batshit idea...

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I'd imagine that there's probably a rule saying that you can only send fuel to the (conventional) engine...

You couldn't send fuel to your pulsejet

Therefore, you could not gain thrust from it :(

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Ciro Pabón
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Re: Batshit idea...

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You don't have to send fuel. The exhaust would be enough, after all F1 engines throw liters and liters of unburnt fuel through the exhaust just for the purpose of cooling the engine. In that sense, it's some kind of KERS.

Actually, there are some prototypes on the pipeline that use the exhaust heat: at least one of them (proposed by BMW and perhaps ad portas of going to market) uses steam. We talked about it years ago, when KERS were a novelty.

At that moment, FIA said (if I remember well) that the KERS idea was about recycling energy and that they intended to start by reusing brake energy (those are the KERS we have today) and then they would allow exhaust energy recovery.

This proposal would use unburnt fuel in the exhaust, so I find it very ecological, KERS-ian, Antiglobalwarm-ian and certainly made for FIAland and PressReleaseLand.

I think Green Peace would be proud and little baby dolphins would squeak in joy if some day they hear about it in their little gray iPods.

Anyway, this is just to say that we already made the calculations one day I misunderstood another related question, here:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9526&p=226755

... so, you could use them, calculations, to fit the thing into your design. I assume this time I understood the question correctly (improbable).

If I did, the I can say it won't be easy to fit it, lemme tell you.

I estimated that you need a 30 cm diameter exhaust pipe and a 60 cm diameter combustion chamber plus a high efficiency valve and 2.8 m of tube to get 200 kg of impulse force. The longer the tube, the higher the impulse.

For 100 kilos you need like 2.1 meters. A design with this shorter tube and half the thrust has smaller combustion chamber and exhaust pipe diameters, of course.

I mentioned that locating a valve in the exhaust is not what you would call ideal for an Otto engine, but, who knows, perhaps tuning it correctly it could actually help the engine cycle.

Surely it would be a booster if you use a valveless engine. Which is actually a tube with fuel you burn...

So, I think: what's refraining the teams from burning that unburnt fuel already? You just need an ignition source and presto. Actually, it makes a lot of sense in the EBD era (already gone): after all you have a lot of "potential gases" residing in that unburnt fuel.

I guessed in my previous post that maybe the material you would need to isolate the additional heat created by that fuel could be a disadvantage.

If the pipe is very short and relatively thin, like F1 exhaust pipes are, then the impulse is very low. Like 10 kilos for a 2 feet or so of pipe at 15 cm of diameter, which I think is a realistic design that can be fitted under the engine hood. Now, probably the heat shield you would need could weigh more than the impulse you get.

I know of no regulations that forbid such an arrangement, except the one that says that your car can only have one engine, but I'm not sure if the regulations mention something like "any other engine connected to the power axle except the KERS" or similar. If that's the case (I feel lazy today to check) then it would be feasible, as a pulsejet is not connected to the power axle.

It makes a lot of noise, which could be a plus, except in the circuits that already have a lot of problems because the neighbors complain, which are... most of them.

The idea would be to race at Elkhart Lake, for example (it's an airport, in case you don't get the smarty pants joke).

Just in case, here you have a pulse jet kart. Nice exhaust, btw... ;)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U-grFuXZ9U[/youtube]

... and here there is a trike with TWO pulsejets. I'd guess you are thinking on one pulsejet for each bank of cylinders, so...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hxgfohmz8k[/youtube]
Ciro

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WhiteBlue
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Joined: 14 Apr 2008, 20:58
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Re: Batshit idea...

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Oh no! The return of the buzz bomb.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEMvyM_ZBC4[/youtube]


They should rather fit Bernies fans!

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Formula One's fundamental ethos is about success coming to those with the most ingenious engineering and best .............................. organization, not to those with the biggest budget. (Dave Richards)

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xpensive
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Re: Batshit idea...

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Stimulating ideas for my brain-activity, as it is now, but how about using the 500+ kW of xhaust power to generate steam from a water tank in order to blow the diffuser, would that be legal? Still an EBD, but an "(E)xhaust Boiled Diffuser"?
"I spent most of my money on wine and women...I wasted the rest"

Mandrake
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Re: Batshit idea...

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The watertank empties while driving, this will have another impact on weight distribution and handling balance. Also it is adding weight to the car. Then there is the question of how to speed up the steam.

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Ciro Pabón
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Re: Batshit idea...

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What are we here for if not for changing what seems impossible into a merely improbable thing?

X has a point here. It must be forbidden, mandrake, I'd guess, but anyway, I just want to point out that merely by the addition of water vapor you're increasing air density (and a lot!), so you don't need to accelerate the steam.

Just the steam presence in the hot air exhausting, by making air "heavier", would be enough to make X idea work.

About the exhaust boiler for actual work (not as an aerodynamic gadget), it has been proposed already and there are prototypes, as said.

So, for originality, if you think about it for a moment, you can recognize that a pulsejet in the exhaust it's almost like a turbo in the inlet... you're decreasing exhaust back pressure.

It could be useful. I cannot calculate today how much this lesser back pressure would increase engine efficiency, so... who's in the mood?

As I see it right now, a pulsejet in the exhaust is like a "turbo in reverse".

Sort of. With a properly adjusted valve, somehow synchronized with the engine, you'd get an "empty" cylinder on the exhaust stroke, under vacuum, because of the pulsejet working on the exhaust, bringing in more fuel and air in the intake cycle because the cylinder would be below atmospheric pressure at the start of the admission stroke.

I wonder how much. Numbers anyone? Pretty please?

For EXTREME originality, and following X idea and mandrake objection, you could use driver's urine instead of water... it's almost at the CG and it is unused nowadays. Even number 2 could be useful. Pit stops would be a mess... Then this thread would become a truly batshiat idea.

I would love to hear the pit radio in this case. "We need one more liter, Lewis. Pee mightily! Pee to victory, kiddo!"
Ciro

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xpensive
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Re: Batshit idea...

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Thanx Ciro, your support is truly heartwarming. But seriously, with 500+ KW on tap, you could apply a pressure-boiler, easily producing overheated steam at 250C and 30 Bar, which injected to the diffuser at super-sonic speed would ferociously suck the air under the car to unseen static pressures!

Water supply is not much of a problem, as you can replace ballast with "Heavy water", H3O, which has almost the same denity as tungsten, well, almost. In case of a wet race, MrE wants artificial such anyway, there would be no problems whatsoever, just scoop it from the air.
"I spent most of my money on wine and women...I wasted the rest"

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Ciro Pabón
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Re: Batshit idea...

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Well, ok, you're welcome. You might want to revise your concept of heavy water. It's not H3O, for starters, and about density... well, check Wikipedia, anyway (I haven't).
Ciro

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Re: Batshit idea...

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Ciro Pabón wrote:Well, ok, you're welcome. You might want to revise your concept of heavy water. It's not H3O, for starters, and about density... well, check Wikipedia, anyway (I haven't).
It is very heavy water indeed, can be sometimes found in the Norwegian mountain springs, the Germans were looking for it during the war for use in their nuclear programme you know!
"I spent most of my money on wine and women...I wasted the rest"

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pob
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Re: Batshit idea...

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I think you mean [³H]2O (the hydrogen is called tritium and has two extra neutrons).

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Ciro Pabón
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Re: Batshit idea...

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No, no, X, you're confused.

Germany pretended to be looking for heavy water. You know, at... Narvik? (I forgot. That dam filled with snow, as all Nordic lakes apparently are. Where Eagles Dare. That movie. Clint Eastwood and Burton.).

The truth is they were actually looking for Aquavit. I got your point: that's the heaviest water in Scandinavia.

As engineers cannot design without some kind of alcohol and Germany had only Schnapps and similarly uninspiring liquors, all they could make, in the end, was V-1s and pulse jets, as my dear friend White Blue already had suggested. Other people with more access to Scandinavian resources made the atomic bomb. Germany was stopped.

They were kaput, so to speak.

So, the effort of the Army of Finland, who dutifully drank all the Aquavit saved us from totalitarianism. I know some Swedes gave them a hand, so, well done. Häftigt, mongos!

By the way, I thought that the heavy water that Germany used as a cover up was made of deuterium but, hey, are we going to argue over a neutron? I'm not.

Going out of thread (you know, the thread on "Deuterium and Pulsejets: the way ahead for a more rational Formula One") I would like to mention that you can use this following worksheet to actually make a pulsejet. It includes templates to cut the sheet you'll need to make the combustion chamber and exhaust and it includes a small explanation about valved and valveless designs.

For aspiring designers of pulse jet powered race cars, it is a must.

It's kanon and toppen. Let's snap to that.

http://www.pulse-jets.com/download/pjc14.xls
Ciro

gridwalker
gridwalker
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Joined: 27 Mar 2009, 12:22
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Re: Batshit idea...

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Seeing as they want to make the technology both green AND relevant to the real world, how about using a recycled chassis that is suited to a trip to the supermarket?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ncqp5B0mUUE[/youtube]
"Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine ..."

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xpensive
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Re: Batshit idea...

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Ciro Pabón wrote: ...
Germany pretended to be looking for heavy water. You know, at... Narvik? (I forgot. That dam filled with snow, as all Nordic lakes apparently are. Where Eagles Dare. That movie. Clint Eastwood and Burton.).

The truth is they were actually looking for Aquavit. I got your point: that's the heaviest water in Scandinavia.
...
Looking for Aquavit with Richard Burton around, little wonder the came home empty handed?
"I spent most of my money on wine and women...I wasted the rest"