Mercedes Power Unit Hardware & Software

[LookBackTime]

Petronas to debut new Mercedes fuel in Barcelona

http://en.f1i.com/news/90378-petronas-d ... elona.html

[Brian Coat]

Correct, loads of relatively cool air (still enough to singe your eyebrows though ).

How is this vortex malarkey going to offer MGU-H+ICE power gains over a *highly* insulated smooth exhaust pipe?

If the losses in this area warranted it, couldn't you have twin skins with whatever between (argon ?!), thermal barrier coatings everywhere, all wrapped up in a cardigan and thereby avoid the flow losses of a wrinkly pipe?

[PhillipM]

Yep, red herring in terms of heat insulation to be honest.

[FrukostScones]

AMUS:
RB accuses Mercedes to have added additives via the engines oil into the fuel (or combustion chamber) during qualy.

FIA reponse: fuel directive that makes it absolutely clear than no oil is allowed anytime in the fuel.

Toto: "We never did this!"


https://translate.google.com/translate? ... rl&act=url

[hurril]

AMUS:
RB accuses Mercedes to have added additives via the engines oil into the fuel (or combustion chamber) during qualy.

FIA reponse: fuel directive that makes it absolutely clear than no oil is allowed anytime in the fuel.

Toto: "We never did this!"


https://translate.google.com/translate? ... rl&act=url

You have to wonder what's brought this on. Did Mercedes accuse Red Bull of something so that this is some sort of Cold Waresque trading of blows?

[Brian Coat]

If you fancy some cold-war paranoia ...

I wonder if an atmospheric emissions sample of a qualifying car as it drives by contains enough unburned HC (& other) molecules to be analysable?

[r101]

I think the only way to be sure is to introduce mandatory sensors in/near the exhaust..
Or limit what you can put into engine oil.

[Santozini]

i do remember seeing a puff of smoke coming out of the mercs...

https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... h=0dda7869

related?

[hemichromis]

i do remember seeing a puff of smoke coming out of the mercs...

https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... h=0dda7869

related?

Oh yes i remember also. and it was only the Mercedes team, not the other Mercedes engined teams.

[PlatinumZealot]

It happened to force India as well. Just because they were not at the front of the grid it was not as noticeable.

[roon]

Might help to know how big the oil tanks are from team to team. Checking oil levels pre & post race would show if oil was being consumed at an abnormal rate. Also, remember the bluish-grey coating that persists on the interior of the Merc exhaust pipe? Maybe it's not related to fuel composition, but oil.



Renault & Ferrari had exhibited a reddish coating.

5.14.2 Other than engine sump breather gases, exhaust gas recirculation, and fuel for the normal purpose of combustion in the engine, the spraying of any substance into the engine intake air is forbidden.

7.1 Location of oil tanks :
All oil storage tanks must be situated between the front wheel axis and the rearmost gearbox casing longitudinally, and must be no further than the lateral extremities of the survival cell are from the longitudinal axis of the car.
7.2 Longitudinal location of oil system :
No other part of the car containing oil may be situated behind the complete rear wheels.
7.3 Catch tank :
In order to avoid the possibility of oil being deposited on the track, the engine sump breather must vent into the main engine air intake system.
7.4 Transversal location of oil system :
No part of the car containing oil may be more than 700mm from the car centre line.

As far as I can tell, oil composition is not regulated & oil volume is not regulated. Perhaps a combustible or flammable vapor dissociates from the oil once it's reached a certain temperature. Or the oil is aerosolized finely enough in the crankcase to be incorporated directly into the intake air.

Could an oil have an aromatic or vaporizing component? If mixed in with a lean fuel charge, would this aid combustion?

Edit- Added images.

[PlatinumZealot]

Soo.. A highly combustible vapour emerging from the oil that Mercedes uses that finds its way into the intake tract.

Assuming this is the suction side of the turbo... A tiny little drilling. A little channel joining the eye of the compressor to a little oil crucible. Tucked away in the block. Heated by the engine itself.. This entire arrangement essently a carburettor.

In qualifying mode the driver presses a button. The crucible is heated. Evapouration of the purest of virgin naptha ensues. This highly methylated spirt is nay metered into the carburettor jet. The pin hole sized channel perfect in dimensions accomplishing the required flow rates into the eye of the compressor.

This is also why Mercedes uses a water intercooler. Only water can quench a sudden explosion of this comprrssed spirit under the driver' backside. Also why the charge pipes are heavy walled. Too heavy for our car said Force india and williams. Whose engines have the oil crucible but their carburretor channels sealed off.

The divorced compressor is perfect for this application. It is built into the engine block it is one peice. The naptha ports must be aligned perfectly and the crucible valve in proper operation. Even a new engine will meet an early demise if the ports take on liquid oil into the engine. Ask lewis hamiton in Malaysia!

Yes.

T'is true!

That little puff of smoke at the start is the oil crucible being purged under high heat. A little is left for short bursts of speed to o'er take a rival in race. Be careful only three times may you call on this push to pass. The crucible is flushed of evidence after each race.

[roon]

Yeah, I was thinking about how they could have broken their main bearings, as well. Too much "assistance oil" or vapor, and accidentally went into diesel mode.

[roon]

Ok, so what did I do? I started of with two pipes. One clear pipe with a inner diameter of 40mm and one with the Special shaped internal part (inner diameter also 40mm). Both pipes are 520mm long, have a wall thickness of 2,5mm and both are enclosed in a air volume.

I then simulated both pipes with the same variables. The outer air volume had a in-temp of 100°C and a velocity of 50m/s. The inner (exhaust) volume had a in-temp of 1000° , a pressure of 5bar absolute and a velocity of 100m/s.

While I won't show you screenshots of the normal exhaust simulation (useless, it's just a simple flow in one direction), I can show you some details about the vortex-style pipe.

http://fs5.directupload.net/images/170222/78hlcdrb.png
Here you can see how the heat get's trapped in the center. The vortices indeed are able to generate some kind of heat shield.
It's fascinating that these turbulent motions also make up for a barrier between the "pins" that look into the center and the exhaust gas.

http://fs5.directupload.net/images/170222/dtbf9wio.png
Here I also enabled some vector-arrows to show, how the flow looks like in these little chambers. You can see good, how there are building up little circles of flow, generating the "heat shield". Interesting is, that the vortices have a different shape for every chamber, maybe the flow that went out of one chamber directly get's into the next one and creates some different kind of motion. I don't know if I did the Simulation too short (only did 400 interations, the divergence still was pretty high) but I'm not able to do these big simulations with my current PC in a acceptable time window

The most important thing however is: Did we save heat energy in this process??? And, according to Autodesk CFD, it indeed does. The heat energy transfer on the normal pipe was 28767,5 watts. The energy Transfer on the vortex-shaped pipe was at only 18632,8 watts!!! That's a plus of 54,4%! And i think we all now what could be done with a extra of 10 Kilowatts > more MGU-H recovery potential.

The only negative effect is the flow resistance. In the vortex style pipe, it's 2,24 times higher... But nevertheless, I am more than sure that this is the right way to go.

The only thing that's important is the shape of these vortex inducing elements. And I'm pretty sure the ones I used weren't nearly as optimal as possible (only did one version, the Simulation is sooooo time consuming....).

Anyway, I think we really found something that MB and the others could use

How were you measuring, or quantifying, flow resistance?

Thought I'd bring up this topic again, as it was referenced in the Honda thread recently.

Glenn, I think what your simulation may have been showing was the effect of reduced flow rather than increased insulation.

You mention flow resistance increased 2.24x. This might explain why half as much heat energy was being transferred through the pipe wall. There is less fluid flowing through the pipe over a given period of time.

I considered a similar idea to what ringo & glenntws presented here, with more vertically-shaped interior ribs, but to me it seemed counterintuitive. While it would generate trapped vortices, to satisfy the wording of the rumor, it also introduces more surface area into the interior of the manifold. This seems like it would create a heat sink effect, potentially increasing the amount of heat absorbed by the manifold. Other downsides may be increased part weight and manufacturing difficulty.

[bonjon1979]

Are they suggesting 5 kg of fuel a lap? That's an awful lot of extra weight to be dragging around, not to mention te space it would take up.