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I have been doing some thinking about the 2014 power unit and a few things stuck out to me.
1. Can you use air/liquid inter-coolers for 2014 onwards or only air/air?
2. I know you can't use a fan to pull air through the radiator currently but will teams be allowed to use one on an inter-cooler? Or are no fans allowed at all anywhere on the car even for electrical cooling?

Liquid to air intercoolers are allowed.

Fans are not allowed.

scarbs wrote:Liquid to air intercoolers are allowed.
...

As soon as someone finds an edge with them, they are out.

Thanks scarbs. Now I wonder if anybody has tried to use electrostatic fluid accelerators ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrosta ... ccelerator ) to help move air. While this method may not be able to move a large mass of air quickly enough without being to big, for use in ground effects and such) I have to wonder if it can be implemented to help pull air through the radiators. This in turn may allow the designers to make the radiators, the cowling or the inlet area smaller.

2nd I wouldn't be surprised if at least one team designs their engines with air to liquid intercoolers.

What fluids are allowed? Could you create cooling pump just like in a fridge??

Holm86 wrote:What fluids are allowed? Could you create cooling pump just like in a fridge??

I remember that Toleman sponsor Candy was working on something like that with Hart in 1983 I think it was.

Holm86 wrote:What fluids are allowed? Could you create cooling pump just like in a fridge??

Will have to check the regulations on that one, however, technically saying a cooling pump is not true. How fridges work is they compress a fluid (coolant), this causes the temperature to rise above the ambient air temp. Then the fluid is run through a heat exchanger (radiator) which transfers heat into the air. The fluid pressure is the brought back down so the temp decreases further. The net result is that the final temp is lower than the starting temp. This is the basic concept anyway.

In engineering terms this is possible however it would be fairly complicated, weigh a fair bit and draw a fair amount of power causing the alternator to have to put more load on the engine.

In regulatory terms I am really not sure. I think I remember reading somewhere in the regs that the only cooling fluid allowed is water however I may be completely wrong on that point.

xpensive wrote:

Holm86 wrote:What fluids are allowed? Could you create cooling pump just like in a fridge??

I remember that Toleman sponsor Candy was working on something like that with Hart in 1983 I think it was.

Yes it shouldn't be that difficult. You just need a compressor pump and a condenser which could be air cooled. The pump could be electrical.

Not so crucial now as fuel-flow is limited, cooler should will allow lower boost and more recovery from MGU-H, not much though.

Yeah I know. I could be too much effort for something that's not that much.

xpensive wrote:Not so crucial now as fuel-flow is limited, cooler should will allow lower boost and more recovery from MGU-H, not much though.

Well that isn't necessarily true. With the extra space occupied by the intercoolers then space will be at a premium. Especially with Adrian Newey's supposed line of thinking; aero first, make everything fit with it. The smaller they will be able to make the radiators by running some sort of system like a fridge then the smaller they can make the sidepods.

I doubt it will happen but still interesting idea

I remember when the Brabham mechanics stacked Nelson's intercoolers with dry ice and froze everything before 1400 Hp quali.

Moments in time.

scarbs wrote:Fans are not allowed.

So that is why they are thinking of those weird double points rules and what not (yeah bad joke, i know)

Anyways, back on topic. Do the rules force you to run an intercooler? I don't know much about Turbo's but going after TheWPTformula's article on it(which was a great article by the way) I think that there would be a big aero and weight advantage in not running an intercooler. Of course there would be deficits to doing so, but could the advantages outweigh the deficits?

wesley123 wrote:

scarbs wrote:Fans are not allowed.

So that is why they are thinking of those weird double points rules and what not (yeah bad joke, i know)

Anyways, back on topic. Do the rules force you to run an intercooler? I don't know much about Turbo's but going after TheWPTformula's article on it(which was a great article by the way) I think that there would be a big aero and weight advantage in not running an intercooler. Of course there would be deficits to doing so, but could the advantages outweigh the deficits?

His article didn't really explain the benefits of using an intercooler. Turbos are used to increase the density or rather the mass flow of air into the cylinder. When you use a compressor you increase the pressure but you also heat up the air so the mass flow is really not much higher without a turbo but you still have the downsides. Using an intercooler drop the temp of the air for the increase in density/mass flow that you needed.

It's very hard to run a turbo without an intercooler IMO.

Also no latent energy cooling allowed (no vaporization of the working fluid).