Looking at how small the radiator exits are on the W08, I began to wonder if some of the radiator rejection was being routed through the exhaust pipes. The only way to legally do this would be to incorporate a heat-exhanger between the air intake/compressor and the turbine. How to do this?
Design the compressor to have two flow paths. One pulls air in for the normal operation of the engine. Another pulls in air from the downstream side of a radiator, injesting the heated air exiting it. This is then is channeled into the exhaust prior to the turbine, or into one or both of the wastegate pipes.
If dumped into the wastegate pipes, there would be less of an issue with working against exhaust backpressure—isolation from the main exhaust stream. Although this sort of emission from the power unit may not qualify as an "exhaust gas" per 5.8.2.
If dumped into the manifold or turbine, some type of checkvalve would be needed. The wasteheat flow would entrain during the pressure drops between exhaust pulses. Unless the compressor is set up to pressurize the charge air equal to or greater than the peak exhaust manifold pressure. Compressor overcharging would allow constant charge air injection into the exhaust manifold, either for the purposes of this radiator-circuit I'm proposing or to:
•play some role in the "vortex exhaust rumor" as originally proposed here: http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... 4&p=671398
•increase the volume of gas flowing in the exhaust manifold. This would be internal, integral heat exhchange within the exhaust pipes, minimizing radiative loss by entraining heat into a gas flow which can be harnessed by the turbine. Perhaps this causes a loss of blowdown harnessing, but with a goal of delivering more heat & steady pressure to the turbine. I don't mean to propose a perpetual-motion machine here, so correct me if this is way off.
The compressor could have a type of dual-scroll feature, to achieve the divided flow paths, without contravening the multi-stage compressor disallowance. Such a feature would prevent ingesting radiator heat into the engine-intake plenum & intercooler circuit.
The goal for this would be smaller radiator inlets and outlets, as well as cooling airflow at zero vehicle speed, and possibly a greater volume of heated air delivered to the turbine.
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On one hand, the amount of gas passing through the turbine would be greater, but on the other, said gas would be colder & lower pressure depending on how the two streams are combined. Mainly I'm wondering if an aerodynamic benefit could be had via smaller radiator ducting (by adding a heat exchanger circuit parallel to the ICE) , and if playing around with bleed/bypass air in the exhaust could offer some benefit. But if it absorbs too much exhaust heat pre-turbine, then...
