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Turbo to intake cooling.

That looks like a knock off of some industrial air line coolers that I’ve worked around.

big thing about any heat sink- hot goes to cold and if that is under hood near heat, you may draw heat in rather heat than expel it. And the fact that there are no heatsinks inside for the moving air to contact- almost none if the boosted air will touch the surface to be able to expel it. So that exact one- crap. The real ones have the fins going through the pipe wall making a star pattern inside the pipe and have a slight twist to them so the air gets deflected slightly forcing more surface area contact.
 
Like others said it won't do much. In addition to surface area contact inside vs outside velocity is too high inside vs outside and no big difference in Temp with wall. I have wondered if in small diameter applications with larger delta T like oil cooler lines if they might add some merit. Something similar like the coil with whiskers tubing like on AC condensor.
 
But, but - what if you routed your air intake to your front bumper or under the engine with the fins catching most of the "cooler" air and than back up to the motor?

Mostly sarcastic - however, even if there were room to pull that off - would the extra distance the air would need to travel hurt the process?
 
IF that thing were built where there was a ton of surface area contact like a cac, it would help. Of coarse the more cold air forced across it helps to (like a fan).

Yes,
There is disadvantage to longer runs- more lag. Imagine if you had the turbo push through 100’ of pipe before it hit the intake. Picture the time it takes to move that air that far. Also there is more volume it is going to pressurize up to it’s predetermined boost level. So that takes longer. Moving the air through a cac is worth it to cool the air because the turbo compressing it heats it up. So the gain from cooling it offsets the loss from lag of pumping it the extra distance.

Basically that little pipe with fine on the outside is the worlds most inefficient cac. If you measured the temperature drop of air flowing through it, even with 400° Air inside and 0° Outside air blowing on it... I hate to think how many zeros there would be after the decimal before a 1 appeared. That is if you have accurate enough temp probes to read it.
 
If it actually cools the air at all. Specifically, it might make a cool layer right at the boundary, but can see where laminar flow basically skips over this cool layer in much the same way that a sheet of plywood can glide over a smooth concrete floor.
 
So I agree with what others have already pointed out on that part. But with a single part addition you could double/triple the heat-exchanger efficiency. This part is seen in boiler tubes and in the flue of some commerial gas water heaters.

Its just a tight pitch corkscrew of metal inserted in the tube. Don't now if its an official industry name, but at my work we call them turbolators. The swirling flow path causes greatly increased tube ID impingment of the gas/fluid. It also increases residence time, further increasing efficiency.

But, no matter what gizmo you attach to that "as seen on Wish.com" part, it won't even come close to the performance of a $49 Ebay CAC.
 
What if...now hear me out - with your a/c lines wrapped around it or in a blanket and focus all A/C from the compressor to just the air intake tube?
 
Only scenario where making the air swirl might prove beneficial to this cooling device is where the blades that make the air swirl are part of the device. Blades will need a coarse surface as well. Result is turbulence which will interact with blade the surface rather than skim along a layer. The blades in turn will pass the heat to the outer shell where the external fins will radiate (presumably to an airflow that is cooler). Probably will need more than one set of blades to have any measurable heat exchange. Given that though, am not expert enough to state whether the net is a zero sum gain, benefit, or loss when taking into account drag created by the fins.

In the grand scheme of things, not sure whether adding integrated swirl features will make any benefit at all unless this device is able to sit where it will get an airflow free of the motor's heat. Even with that, the question remains as to whether parasitic drag will negate benefits. If it sits inside the engine bay, post radiator airflow and radiant energy from the motor might actually negate cooling to the intake air or possibly heat it.
 
The internal fins make way more sense.

Also - thanks for this discussion on aero-dynamics, haha. It's been nice. Even though we kind of got off topic from the OP.
 
treegump said:
What if...now hear me out - with your a/c lines wrapped around it or in a blanket and focus all A/C from the compressor to just the air intake tube?
Click to expand...
Take your a/c lines and run them to an evaporator coil inside the tube that all the air is forced through and then you have something. That is something I have been seriously contemplating. I’ve no problem running an a/c compressor all the time. Gonna put all that heat in the cooling stack one way or another. No cac or water cooler for water to air, means bigger condenser and more air flow across it from fan.

A cac and these tube heat exchangers is at immediate limit of ambient temp. Water to air gets beat up by that also, but not as bad. Refrigerant way colder than any water can get will do a better job moving BTUs...
 
Dunno 'bout the Hummer set-up, but I have noticed that the A/C taxes fuel economy by about 10% in this era of vehicle.

So unless the cooled air can boost efficiency to offset the power tax, results might turn into step backward.

By the way, aren't you supposed to be in bed? ;)
 
Haha! I got my sleepy hours.
Hummers are geared so funny that mine doesn’t notice an extra 2 tons and a/c with fan engaged or not! Haha- no but really it doesn’t notice the a/c one bit.

Seriously a really tiny dedicated compressor, a/c system could do wonders and make up for it’s belt drag -depending on turbo. We know the huge ATT gets no benifit because it doesn’t trap the exhaust heat or overly heat the incoming air by really high boost pressure, so it wouldn’t benifit. A GM X choke-o-matic... oh yeah- especially in something like a hummer that has 2.43 gears followed up by 1.9:1 geared hubs (portals). 37” tall tires anyone want to do the rpm math at 110 mph? BWAHAHAHA.
 
@treegum,
Actually not a bad concept at all, so mush so that Ford owns a very broad Patent on it!

If your ultimate goal is hp/compact/light weight, yes using the a/c system is very viable. But as others have pointed out, there's no free lunch. Even small automotive a/c refrigerant pumps consume >10HP. This translates to lower mpg.

@JayTheCPA, what realy matters in a heat exchanger is the thermal impeadence of the device (conversely, thermal conductivity coefficient). The materials (aluminium, copper, brass, SS), and the surface area exposed to the media are the biggest factors. Tubes, coils, heatsink fins, phase change heat-tubes, forced air, refrigerants, peltiers, are all solutions to effectively condensed large suface areas into smaller packages. An in-tube "turbolator" does to a lesser degree accomplish the same (at least on one thermal junction interface).

Trust me boiler/water tank mfg's wouldn't utilize them if they were just dead weight.

Will L's hmmwv application is atypical, as his driveline is substantially more complicated and capable than most civi vehicles. Unfortunately the weight and driveline losses of a hmmwv results in fuel economy that make my 6.5 K2500 suburban seem like a prius.

His application, if designed out of the hmmwv cooling stack would work quite well and probably have negligible fuel economy impact. Please keep in mind up-armored mil hmmwv weigh in the 16,000-20,000Lbs range now. Moving that weight 50mph through sand, a refrigerant based charge cooler's pwr consumption would be like a flee on a horse.

BTW, speaking of prius's, since the advent of commercially viable electric cars: dc powered electric a/c compressors are readily available now! Mmmm, bet some of you are intrigued in the possibilities of that!
 
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