Turbocharging is about energy recovery... why not recover MORE?

[Bud92gsx]

I can go in my bedroom right not and blow in the turbine housing..And see if just by blowing into it creates any flow at all..

Heat from your breath is not turbo EGT heat..But it's still airflow..

 

[viperlp01]

G0 in your room, blow into the turbine housing, and make it spin around 150,000 rpms. I would be impressed with 100rpms. Go feel the tail pipe of your car when running, then feel an open o2 housing. Much more violent.

 

[Bud92gsx]

I would be impressed with 50rpms ..

But no flow is still flow..But than again an engine has ALOT more exhaust gasses than my mouth or other end..

 

[red_devil]

Power Generation - Amerigon

Not related to turbo spool but the idea is being used for other means.

 

[GSLENK]

Isn't steam HOT? Don't you want to keep HOT stuff OUT of your intake? h2o injection uses i presume cool or cold water, with the purpose of cooling.

The thought process is good. At least you know you have an active problem-solving, working brain... some people just aren't blessed with such abilities.

 

[Calan]

Isn't steam HOT? Don't you want to keep HOT stuff OUT of your intake?

OP is talking about injecting steam into the hotside...not the compressor (I hope).

 

[airmail96]

I know a few girls that might be able to get it up there haha. I think the biggest thing will be the amount of pressure generated by the steam that is created. I am sure a turbine housing could hold it, but for how long and what would happen to the turbine blade itself no idea.

 

[H@xtGSX]

We aren't talking about injecting it into the intake. It would be injected onto the turbine on the exhaust side.

... And I also think it'd cause a fairly large pressure spike. I don't know how much of a shock load that would put on a turbine though. I have worked on enough ship size steam turbines to know that steam can produce an amazing amount of force in a turbine very, very quickly.

Bud, if you go blowing into a turbine for a spool demo, you are REQUIRED to video that and post it so we can watch you pass out.

 

[HIGHPSI4]

Your 9000 pound car will be slow. By the time you add the weight of the water, holding tank, pressure vessels, etc. you will see that losing the heat energy is not that bad. In addition, hot air is extremely inefficient in thermal transfer will take forever to heat water. There is no free lunch.

 

[Bud92gsx]

Bud, if you go blowing into a turbine for a spool demo, you are REQUIRED to video that and post it so we can watch you pass out.

I don't have a youtube account..Or I would do just that..So people can get a good laugh at me blowing a turbo, and passing out...

 

[H@xtGSX]

Power Generation - Amerigon

Not related to turbo spool but the idea is being used for other means.

This is actually pretty interesting. If they can generate a decent efficiency with those generators, it'd free up a pretty heavy load from the alternator. I don't know if you've ever had the opportunity to feel the resistance caused by electrical generation under load, by try running one of those bicycle generators with the load maxed out. It gets HARD to pedal. Same goes for the alternator.... Interesting stuff.

I don't think you'd have to add that much weight, really. A small pressure vessel capable of holding 150 psi (rough guess), should contain enough compressed volume to serve the purpose of a quick shot down the pipe to spool quicker. Also, once the engine is warm, a pipe wrapped around the downpipe will be plenty hot enough to flash a small amount of water to steam very quickly. It's in the region of 600-700 degrees, I believe. I know 800 and above pre-turbo is normal, which would instantly flash a small amount of water... So, the heating pipe could even be in contact with the header if it needed more heat. It wouldn't be pulling heat from air contact, but the thermal mass of the pipes and adjacent metal, which would conduct a larger amount of heat directly to the water, faster.

This would be a short burst thing, like nitrous, not a continuous process. I would guess a quart of water, maybe less, would be plenty of water to do more steam shots than most people would need anyhow.

 

[91stocker]

Wouldnt the water injected into the hotside have the exact opposite effect that your trying to obtain? It seems to me that it would/could only cool the exhaust gases. Since the water injected would be cooler then the exhaust gases. The air in the dp is ofcourse going to to be cooler then the air in the mani. Then you still have to transfer some heat to the coils to heat the water.

 

[H@xtGSX]

True, it would cool it, but that energy absorbed should be converted to higher density gas producing more pressure at the turbine. Thus, you would in theory, be capturing and using more of the heat energy mechanically.

Remember, this would be a short, high pressure shot down the pipe, not a constant thing, so that temperature drop would be extremely short lived.

 

[talonsteve25]

Its hard to say if it would work or not with out going through a ton of thermodynamic calculations or actually doing it, but i could see it working. First off i don't think its pressure that drives a turbine its the mass flow rate of the gas or steam, pressure is just a measure of resistance to that flow. So by adding steam to the exhaust gas, yes the temp will drop, but if the ratio is right (ratio of how much the exhaust gas contracts to amount of steam added) you could add more mass flowing through the system even though the hot exhaust air has become more dense. So that means with the increase of flowing mass hitting the turbine you could increase its out put considerably. And this would follow the law of energy, since you used some wasted energy from the down pipe and added it back into the system there is no way you could be decreasing the energy out put of the turbine. Only thing is that steam could cool the exhaust to much and from previously stated the temp coming out of the turbine is always lower then whats going in, so this in turn could rapidly cool the down pipe causing the water not to flash to steam until the system re heats. But again all of that is just my theory, actual calculations could prove something other wise.


I also could be talking out my *** i don't have my thermo books in front of me to double check .

 

[pauleyman]

Has anybody had any thermodynamics experience?
My head hurts from this thread.
The the person who suggested pure oxygen in a nitrous bottle. Please don't if you want to live. Lookout how nitrous works and you'll see why.
A few discussions of enthalpy, entropy and latent heat of evaporation are in order. Two points for thinking outside the box. Don't forget it takes energy to vaporize that water also. It isn't free.

 

[H@xtGSX]

I would suspect the thermal mass banked in the turbine housing itself is much more than necessary to keep the system hot post shot, since we are only talking maybe 3 to 5 seconds. The energy to convert the water to steam would be a much more gradual thing than just shooting water into the exhaust, as you would be pulling from the thermal energy banked in the mass of metal by metal to metal contact with the heating pipe. I wouldn't think injection of water in a liquid state would be a good idea with a turbine running at the speed they spin. If just a few drops got into that turbine on accident, it would be like if you threw a pebble in it. Same reason water injection is normally done after the compressor... Wheel damage.

 

[talonsteve25]

Who said anything about injecting water into the exhaust? But yes as long as the shot was kept short the metal would keep its energy I'm guessing, i think it would require more then just copper pipe wrapped around the down pipe as well, you would need a pump to push the water into the pipe and a good tank to hold all of the high pressure steam. As well as a well placed nozzle and some way of controlling it, but if it worked how cool would that be.

And yeah of course you would need to run some numbers to see if enough thermal energy would be created to work in this system to see if its even possible, but right now its just educated guesses.

 

[H@xtGSX]

I just went to the store to get some vodka to cure my "racing thoughts" (horrible pun totally intended), warming the motor and exhaust up in the process. I then ripped a few hard pulls in 3rd on the way home, just to scare the hell out of the local villagers, and to get some real heat into the exhaust (stock 2g exhaust with an unmodified 14b). I leaned out the normally heavy fuel mix I use (### my wideband is in the mail... Seriously) to get it nice and toasty, but not outside of what I think an aggressive tune would be.

Now, it took me a few minutes to do this, so some of heat was lost,.but I left the engine running. I ran into the garage, grabbed my ir thermometer, a 10 ft coil of 1/4" copper air conditioner tubing (common at any hardware store), a small bottle of water, and a small funnel. I, as quick as I could (and burnt the farging shite out of my hand), removed the top heat shield,and placed the coil of copper tube on the header. I revved the motor a bit, let the tube heat up, then (with welding gloves, ### I'm not totally masochistic) bent the tube up to the funnel and bent the other end away from heat. I stuck the end of the tube that cooled some into a short 3 ft section of air compressor hose I normally have attached to a dryer/filter for car painting. It has a pressure regulator on it. I took a 1" hose clamp and clamped it on the copper tube, air tight. Now the fun starts... I open the regulator and dumped some water down the pipe... I don't know how much, but not a lot. I then took a pair of vice grips and pinched the copper tube shut, leaving the vice grips on. Now, I know I just made a pipe bomb, but there's a 175 psi regulator on there I can release with.... The pressure started rising so quickly I could hear what sounded like pinging or a water hammer in a sink pipe, and hit 50 psi quick. I have no idea what that tubing is rated for, but I wasn't too keen on shrapnel, so I released the regulator. Steam shot out, just like a steam line in a power plant.

I then remembered the ir thermometer... I shot the manifold and got 840f... That is from me jumping in and running it fairly lean at 3500 rpm right beforehand.

This is crappy conditions, with a crappy bunch of parts, and a crappy garage scientist doing a crappy experiment. It tends to make me think this is entirely feasible.

Now.... I am wondering what sort of effect a steam injection would have on the cast steel... We run water injection in front of the chambers and it is believed to be nothing but good, along with the fact that the 2 people I know who've done it have never complained about it rusting out their exhaust piping. That may be a risk... But if you already live on the East Coast, you have humidy that does the same damage anyhow, so no big deal. In New Mexico though, that would probably be a noticeable difference.

 

[tkelly27]

H2O is a byproduct of combustion. I don't think some steam is going to hurt things. Steam is no joke, do be careful. Getting 50psi like that seems promising. You might be able to make a muffler/boiler. If you have to have this on a street car the catalyst may not be able to get up to temp if you remove enough heat from the exhuast, so keep that in mind.

 

[H@xtGSX]

Cat? What cat?

Anything with a 1:1700 expansion ratio is going to be dangerous. Most don't normally think of water as "explosive", but I have seen the results of a high pressure steam pipe rupture... A 6 inch line made a crater you could park your car in from 5 feet underground. I have a healthy respect for its potential. Although I have been thinking about this, I haven't had time to sit down and design anything yet...

I do think it is quite possible it could be a cheap alternative to nitrous though.

 

[talonDSMerr]

Very interesting, and immediately reminded me of Bruce Crower's 6-stroke engine concept.

The cliff-notes of his idea: Following the exhaust stroke, inject water into the cylinder with both valves closed. The water instantly vaporizes creating a second power stroke. Then a final exhaust stroke to expel the steam from the cylinder, and restart with the intake stroke.

The really neat thing about the idea is that it doesn't even need a cooling system to cool the engine. Think of the weight lost! But obviously there are still problems like thermal shock, oxidation, needing another fuel tank for water, etc., but to me, it's a VERY promising idea.

You were on the right track with your idea, OP, but why not take it a step further and make use of the heat before it even leaves the cylinder?

 

[EclipticalGS]

Cat? What cat?

Anything with a 1:1700 expansion ratio is going to be dangerous. Most don't normally think of water as "explosive", but I have seen the results of a high pressure steam pipe rupture... A 6 inch line made a crater you could park your car in from 5 feet underground. I have a healthy respect for its potential. Although I have been thinking about this, I haven't had time to sit down and design anything yet...

I do think it is quite possible it could be a cheap alternative to nitrous though.

This is why clean water piping that travels up a slope then down a slope must have a breather system at its peak. In the case of a loss in pressure even the force gravity would pull the water down both sides of the pipe and cause a vacuum at the peak, so great and with such high heat, a flash steam explosion would occur. I've seen a crater you talk of, now we use breathers. Hah

 

[ramsack]

If only it was so simple as "a turbo uses wasted energy to make more power." That's not true. If this was true the turbo would offer no restriction. Even though steam is hot, it would lower exhaust temperatures considerably, probably bringing down the temperature of the same system causing the water to boil. I can't even believe what I'm seeing, that people are saying heat barely plays any role in spooling a turbo. Good luck with those beliefs in physics. You see what a black and white paddle does inside of a glass bulb in a vacuum, from the heat of a lamp? Yeah, well try that, with airflow, with expanding gas, and many times hotter. I wouldn't be spraying anything into the exhaust to try to spool the turbo. Expanding gas from a bottle, or steam, is going to cool the exhaust and totally do nothing.

 

[talonsteve25]

Have you ever tried it? And do you have any knowledge to backup that statement? It seems as you don't due to your ignorance to how a turbine works and the power of steam.

 

[ramsack]

Have you seen turbines made for steam? They take multiple sections of turbines to extract power from that form of energy. It's going to cool down the exhaust too much on a turbo car. A steam turbine is not just some simple crude blade and nozzle. I suggest maybe you try this stupid little experiment and go shoot steam into your turbo, since you are so above and beyond intelligent. I guess you're a genius though, because the auto makers just haven't thought of this yet