Liquid to air Intercooler Tank Building (pictures)`

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Its funny how the size of the liquid intercooler is a lot smaller than a air -to -air intercooler that is used for the same application. Chris, your using the gt42 and if you were to run a air to air the intercooler would be double or triple the size of the liquid one.



Water has a thermal conductivity 20 times that of air. If you can guarantee that the same mass of water will pass through your water/air intercooler as an equivalently efficient air/air unit, (might be possible considering that water is also much much denser than air) your intercooler could be 1/20th the size I suppose and still get the same charge air temperature reductions. Also assuming that water is at same temperature as air (ambient). Smaller intercoolers mean smaller Impedance to airflow as well.

 

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LB,

We are for all practical purposes only concerned with the efficiency of the intercooler at cooling the charge air in this case...

...Since in a drag race situation the ice can be replace, heat soak is not an issue.



I thought that my post would come across as criticism of your system. I was only trying to illustrate its application to a guy that might not recognize that this car is only on boost for

 

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I thought that my post would come accross as criticism of your system. I was only trying to illustrate its application to a guy that didn't recognized that that this car is only on boost for

 

[curtis]

Chris looks sweet. One day I'll start practicing with my tig. I've only had it for 5 years and used It for about an 4 hours total. The main reason is that it pulls 68 amps and my house has a 100 amp service.

As for the efficiency of the system. This isn't a carnot engine and can't be 100%. The system is a closed rigid tank set up. Which means that the specific volume, volume and mass is all conserved and is constant. I need to think about this and break out my thermo book but if you have a way to let the heat escape from the tank you would be better off due to the liquid to vapor concentration of the water. Also water boils at a lower temp when in a vacuum and boils at a higher temp under pressure. A coil of aluminum tube running through the tank and spray of co2 would also cool nicely but on a track car who cares. You could have 10 boxes built and all of them with a frozen slushy mix and change between rounds. No doubt that this will be more eff. than an air to air, just by pure thought. Walk out side when its 33 degrees or jump in a lake with 33 degree water temp. Water works better. A few of my friends have thermostat switches on ther oil coolers that switch on when the oil gets to a certain temp this could also work for you by switching to a aux air to air cooler to cool the water for street use. Just a thought. But sh*t your also an engineer who am I telling.. Looks good wish I lived closer I could use some tig help with my intake manifold.

 

Practice with the TIG is all it is Curtis. That and a couple tips from a few pro friends now and again when I get stuck. Now I'm trying to figure out how to get a Dynasty 200DX of my own.

If you ever need me to TIG stuff let me know. I'm sure you can find someone good locally but otherwise I'm here /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

For anyone that is still confused on the efficency thing, curtis and LB are right. If someone tells you a water to air is more than 100% efficent they are just comparing to an air/air at NOT the same temperature. If the water is 32deg and the air is 70deg then the intercooler can cool the air to 70 deg (100%) without actually being 100% efficent which isn't possible.

 

Carbon graphite has a conductivity as much as 7 times greater than aluminum. Imagine what we'll be seeing in heat exchangers as graphite foams come onto the market.

Chris, do you already have the PWR core? I hear Laminova core materials are the stink. They are starting to pop up all over the place.

LB

 

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Chris, do you already have the PWR core? I hear Laminova core materials are the stink. They are starting to pop up all over the place.
LB



Not yet unless it's coming for my b-day on Sat. I think i will try it to start with since I need to get the car reassembled but maybe I'll try a different core later. Got a link to Laminova?

 

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Got a link to Laminova?



It's difficult seeing as how they're a sweedish company. I don't know who vends their stuff yet. I don't know if they sell full cores or just core materials.

Here is a pic of one of their water/oil coolers. Core material is probably similar to that for air/water intercooling.

http://www.laminova.se/

I'll continue sniffing around and try to determine where people are getting this stuff.

 

If you've seen cutaways of the new ecotec (ion redline or cobalt supercharged) intake manifold with built-in intercooling, you've seen laminova at work. I will find a pic... Can't need magazine archives... They are owned by Opcon apparently, the makers of autorotor superchargers (claimed to be the worlds most efficient) and they own lysholm too. Funny the GM uses an Eaton. A shame. Visit Opcons sight they might have better infos.

http://www.opconab.com/index.asp?cID=10&langID=2&sPage=1

 

[GVR-4]

Chris, I just read your post in the General Discussions forum and then read this one. My question is would you need a resevoir at all for a daily driver? If I put a nice fat aluminum exchanger that's 28" x 8" x 2" (the same size of the opening in the bumper cover) in place of a front mount air/air and had the electric pump come on based on the water temp in the barrel intercooler, would that work? I realize you're building a track car and the ice thing is key for that, but is a resevoir really needed if the heat exchanger is big enough?

 

[steve]

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Chris, I just read your post in the General Discussions forum and then read this one. My question is would you need a resevoir at all for a daily driver? If I put a nice fat aluminum exchanger that's 28" x 8" x 2" (the same size of the opening in the bumper cover) in place of a front mount air/air and had the electric pump come on based on the water temp in the barrel intercooler, would that work? I realize you're building a track car and the ice thing is key for that, but is a resevoir really needed if the heat exchanger is big enough?



My half a penny says that you want that water pumping at all times to draw the heat out of the air charge. But my opinion on this is about as good as flipping a coin. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[GVR-4]

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My half a penny says that you want that water pumping at all times to draw the heat out of the air charge. But my opinion on this is about as good as flipping a coin. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif



What about when it's 25* outside and you start your car to warm it up?

This thread is cool.

 

In a DD i think the battle is on time vs off time. The bigger your reservior the more "cooler" water you can store in the res with the pump off and the more mass of water you have to absorb heat. If you had a big enough heat exchanger then that acts as a reservor itself. The more capacity you have then the more time you have at WOT without heat soaking on the street and then if you significant off time then hopefully the system can cool back down enough. Carrying a lot of capacity is heavy though, 8 pounds a gal roughly. Air to air is lighter and simplier on the street.

Also if you have a water/air I don't know why you would ever deny yourself a tank to do ice water cooling at the track /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[steve]

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This thread is cool.



Har har.

 

Mine runs purely off a switch. I guess on a street car you could tie it to a master switch and then make it come on with boost, at a certain temp, etc etc.

 

Post deleted by Lucian Bartik

 

[GVR-4]

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Quote:
This thread is cool.



Har har.



No pun was intended. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[cheekychimp]

Laminova Coolers,
I wrote to the swedish company before, and they put me onto a UK distributor

http://www.thinkauto.com/index.htm

Not ideal for you Chris but they might be able to help out.

Paul

 

Here is the fixed and lengthened post. (spelling and readability)

Quote:
Chris, I just read your post in the General Discussions forum and then read this one. My question is would you need a reservoir at all for a daily driver? If I put a nice fat aluminum exchanger that's 28" x 8" x 2" (the same size of the opening in the bumper cover) in place of a front mount air/air and had the electric pump come on based on the water temp in the barrel intercooler, would that work? I realize you're building a track car and the ice thing is key for that, but is a reservoir really needed if the heat exchanger is big enough?



I will suggest that it probably isn't possible to get enough heat rejection from the exchanger to live without the thermal storage capacitor. Here is the scenario:

Most driver cars (not race cars) have low boost duty cycle and short bursts of high charge temps. This was also suggested by Chris moments before this was written as well.

The beautiful thing about water/air systems is that they can disconnect the instantaneous intercooler load on the system from the instantaneous heat rejection capacity of the heat exchanger with this capacitor.

So, you went hella hard from one stoplight to another racing some punk. The whole time you are sitting at the next light, your system is working off that last run so that it can be ready to start working immediately when charge temps go up. Where as the air to air system probably didn't get enough airflow across the intercooler to really start working well until you had to hit the brakes before running the light.

Another scenario: You are on the track or up in the mountains climbing a pass and going at it real hard. On the boost more than off. You are moving at a good pace (probably speeding). Your air/air unit is probably going to be taxed as the components all over the engine bay start to heat up but this is its element, lots of ambient air flowing accross its surface. Your water/air unit probably worked well right when you got on it but the average temperature of the water in the system is rising, and it will continue to do so while you are on the throttle. There is a good thermo explanation for why it is impossible to get as low a charge air temp from water/air in this situation:

The temperature differential between the intercooler and the compressor outlet is very large making for large heat (energy) transfer. The temperature differential between the water in the exchanger and the atmosphere cooling it is very slight in comparison. As the system gets soaked with heat though, this differential increases, improving it's [exchanger] effectiveness, but the intercooler is loosing effectiveness while this is happening. This suggests that there is a point where efficiency will stop dropping (never reach zero) An air/air system will have prety much constant efficiency in this situation on the other hand that will likely be higher than the average efficiency of the water/air throughout this hill climb.

The thermostatic control idea is solid however. A highway cruise mostly off boost would probably be fine with convective fluid flow and wouldn't require pumping.

 

[Barnes]

This is all well and good the infomation here, however. What I want to know is if ANYONE has any imperical data on this? I mean, i've read a zillion threads about this subject. Yet it seems no one has data on the two systems. All this would really take is someone to stick a water temp gauge onto the cold side of the IC water supply and monitor the temps.

Sure, theory says that such and such can happen. But at what points? These theoretical points may be so far beyond the scope of the system we are dealing with, it might not matter.

To me it seems it all boils down to what can get rid of heat, in terms of joules, faster. An air/air IC, or the heat exchanger for a air/water setup.

Perhaps I'm talking out my ass. Thermo is next year so maybe I'll figue it out then. But I'm sure another one of these threads will pop up for me to use my new found knowledge with. Hopefully before that point we can get some numbers from some people and come to a conclusion.