Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[toraabe]

Thanks for the explanation. However, for MGU-H to produce more power at lower RPMS suggests the MGU-H is recovering (i.e. acting as a load to the turbine shaft) even at RPMs below the max boost pressure limit. I had thought MGU-H is only recovering when boost pressure > max limit (i.e. instead of wastegate to slow down the turbine shaft)....


If you look at McLaren Honda They usually do their gearshift between 12000 and 12500. Mercedes and Renault at 11500
And Ferrari at 12000. Why honda has higher rpm before gearshift, can be traced back to MGU-H and turbine is not able to harvest enough energy unless maximum RPM is achieved.

[

Self sustaining mode is the MGU-H bypassing the ERS and sending power directly to the MGU-K while not using any power from the ERS itself. That means exhaust gases are enough to maintain maximum engine power via boost pressure, while at the same time generating electricity via the MGU-H. Supercritical fuel injection would not only create better combustion but it would also create denser exhaust gases allowing the MGU-H to produce more power at lower RPMS.

[Steven]

I have cleaned up some bickering in here, and I'd like to ask to stick to the topic and be constructive.

Thanks!

[Steven]

Next year with engine equalisation in spain , we will find out where all these engine rank and how far each other is.

Engine equalisation will not be in Spain. It will be on a hypothetical track.

Whiting: "We have a process agreed with the power unit manufacturers. So we don’t look at lap times, we have tools to simulate everything so we can calculate the performance of the power unit itself on each car and we transform this in a power index. You have this hybrid system and an engine and you cannot only talk about horsepower, so it is translated into a power index.

We check every car, every lap of these first three races. We take the best of each power unit for each race and each PU manufacturer, then we do the average over the three races. This should give a power index of performance for each power unit manufacturer. This is an index. Then we have a translation of this index into lap time on the Barcelona lap."

http://www.f1technical.net/news/20331

[Andres125sx]

What I'm hearing second hand in the halls is...

Right off this year because they can't fix the PU this season.The design
(compressor in the V) went too far the wrong way from day one and they can't fix it with the token system and no testing rules.Only MB got the formula right from day one and Ferrari caught on the fastest but is still a year behind with Renault now catching on.Honda is about two years behind.

Honda is now working on two CC Designs for the 2017 PU......with the tokens left this year,there isn't much they can do except little upgrades.Pretty much right off new whole new TC design because that is almost impossible to do in season.Also a new CC design works best only with a whole PU package change.

Then, is it worth investing any time and resources on 2016 PU?

It would make more sense switching all efforts and resources into 2017 PU from now, wouldn´t it? Specially if they´re some seaons back in development, starting 2017 development right now could compensate this a little bit

[godlameroso]

[[...]combustion itself can be dramatically improved by supercritical fuel injection, yes it's possible to do so.
[...]

At what temperature and pressure the fuel goes in a supercritical state?

Most hydrocarbons reach super critical state at 40 - 80 bar, they require different temperatures however. For example methane requires ~ 45 bar and -80C, whereas methanol requires 79 bar and ~ 240C. These pressures and temperatures are easily achieved in the engine and fuel system. Furthemore, you can "tune" the properties of super critical fluids, by changing the temperature or the pressure you can nudge them into behaving more like a liquid or gas. It would explain why fuel chemistry is so important, changing the hydrocarbon chains, making them slightly more compact would allow faster phase change. Or you can tune your fuels to be more liquid like in their combusted super critical state to drive the turbine with more k.e.

[Tommy Cookers]

......about turbos(lol). There are potentially 400KW available in the exhaust, most turbines are around 35% efficient, you really need a new approach to get more efficiency from the turbine.
By increasing the density(by achieving super criticality of exhaust gas and fuel injection) and carefully controlling the combustion by-products with new fuel chemistry you could dramatically improve turbine efficiency. What is a ~35% efficient turbine can become up to 12% more efficient. @ 47% efficiency the turbine can generate up to ~110KW in self sustaining mode. That's your 20% right there.

simply, the exhaust can be regarded as a mix of one kind of stuff, that cooks pies/boils water but cannot turn a turbine (or push a piston) ......
and a second kind of stuff that can turn a turbine (or push a piston) but cannot cook pies/boil water
turbine efficiency is based on using the second kind of stuff, and is around 75-80%
turbine efficiency (eg 35%) based on using a mix of both kinds of stuff is meaningless, it tells lots about the mix and nothing about the turbine

increasing the exhaust massflow increases the second kind of stuff, so increasing the power at the turbine (and at the pistons)
this requires adding air (ie using a leaner mixture) without losing combustion efficiency
TJI seems to do this in some engines here and now
maybe supercritical gasoline fuel (increasing vapourisation) would also assist leaning (with or without TJI) ?
as greater leaning is possible with fuel already vapourised eg methane, though chemistry is also a factor in this

estimated F1 boost levels suggest imo that leaning is to around 1.4 lambda
increased turbine power rather tends to be consumed by the increased compressor power needed
but there's scope for increased recovery by applying real backpressure
the benefits of leaning are very reliant on modern compressor and turbine efficiencies

adding air/leaning (heat dilution) can also be seen as reducing peak and mean temperatures, so reducing losses to coolant and exhaust
another way of saying the gas has more of the second kind of stuff

[NL_Fer]

Instead of leaning the mixture (this works great for total efficiency in a whole race).

What if they enrich the mixture on 4 cilinders and cut fuel injction on the other 2. Now the 2 inactive cilinders are just pumping air in the exhaust, enabling combustion of the unburned fuel of the 4 rich cilinders inside the exhaust.

Just another way of hot blowing the turbo during partial throttle during qually or overtake mode.

[Brian Coat]

Hi.

In my imagination that is less effective than rich'n'retard as an "enthalpy dumper" because you rely on exothermic oxidation of the (flame-front-free?) exhaust gas which has also been quenched by cool air from the non-running cylinders? Is that correct?

[gruntguru]

and even less effective than converting as much heat as possible into mechanical work in the ICE and storing any excess via the MGUK and ES.

[Brian Coat]

Yes.

NL_Fer was referring to a part load condition.

[taperoo2k]

What I'm hearing second hand in the halls is...

Right off this year because they can't fix the PU this season.The design
(compressor in the V) went too far the wrong way from day one and they can't fix it with the token system and no testing rules.Only MB got the formula right from day one and Ferrari caught on the fastest but is still a year behind with Renault now catching on.Honda is about two years behind.

Honda is now working on two CC Designs for the 2017 PU......with the tokens left this year,there isn't much they can do except little upgrades.Pretty much right off new whole new TC design because that is almost impossible to do in season.Also a new CC design works best only with a whole PU package change.

Then, is it worth investing any time and resources on 2016 PU?

It would make more sense switching all efforts and resources into 2017 PU from now, wouldn´t it? Specially if they´re some seaons back in development, starting 2017 development right now could compensate this a little bit

It's simple really - 2016 = Track time and data gathering on upgrades that may help with the 2017 PU design.

[godlameroso]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.ph ... edes-level

I wonder what they're experimenting on. In the article they state that they have something that shows promising results in their experiments but hasn't been validated in an actual power unit.

Also assuming they could harvest 2mj from the mguh last year, and they claimed to have doubled that, does it mean they can potentially deploy 6mj total per lap?

[NL_Fer]

With an average 1.20 -1:40 laptime and 60-70% WOT, we can asume an average of 60s WOT + MGU-K is a realistic target. So we need at least 7,2Mj a lap. And even more for Spa.

Also the level of deployment does not say much about how much energy is drawn from the ICE. What if Mercedes has the same deployment, but can generate more free blowdown energy from the exhaust? They can lower backpressure and increase crankpower.

[Andres125sx]

What I'm hearing second hand in the halls is...

Right off this year because they can't fix the PU this season.The design
(compressor in the V) went too far the wrong way from day one and they can't fix it with the token system and no testing rules.Only MB got the formula right from day one and Ferrari caught on the fastest but is still a year behind with Renault now catching on.Honda is about two years behind.

Honda is now working on two CC Designs for the 2017 PU......with the tokens left this year,there isn't much they can do except little upgrades.Pretty much right off new whole new TC design because that is almost impossible to do in season.Also a new CC design works best only with a whole PU package change.

Then, is it worth investing any time and resources on 2016 PU?

It would make more sense switching all efforts and resources into 2017 PU from now, wouldn´t it? Specially if they´re some seaons back in development, starting 2017 development right now could compensate this a little bit

It's simple really - 2016 = Track time and data gathering on upgrades that may help with the 2017 PU design.

I know, but some days/weeks ago they said they´re focused 50/50 on 2016/2017 projects. If that 50% of 2016 project is also focused on improvements wich can be used in 2017 then that would make sense, otherwise...

[GoranF1]

Fernando Alonso

"We're still some horsepower behind the competition," he said.

"We need to see some progress on that, because the gap is quite big right now"