×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

F1 and Turbos

F1 and Turbos

F1 and Turbos

(OP)
Hey everyone,
hearing some rumours that F1 wants to switch to downsized turbocharged engines, I was wondering in what respect F1 turbocharger differ from production car turbochargers. What turbocharger innovations would you like to see in F1? Ceramic wheels? Sheetmetal housings? Any crazy ideas?

Catho  

RE: F1 and Turbos

I would think they would be made almost entirely of carbon if the rules were free. It's pretty much the perfect material for the wheels and housings. The rules would most likely dictate what they were actually like.

RE: F1 and Turbos

So, benpmi, can you give a technical justification for any of the following parts being constucted of carbon (composite)?
turbine wheel
turbine housing
compressor wheel
compressor housing
 

RE: F1 and Turbos

The proper carbon composites won't have any problem dealing with exhaust gasses.

The first reason that comes to mind is the extremely high stiffness to weight ratio. I'm not saying I know exactly how to build it or even that they would use carbon for those parts but it would be the first material I looked too if I was taxed with designing a turbo with virtually no budget. There is a reason almost every part on a modern formula one car is made of the stuff.

RE: F1 and Turbos

no kidding...
Can you share with us some thermal properties for the proper carbon composite at say, 1800-2000°F?
I'd also be interested to know the manufacturing method for a carbon composite compressor or turbine wheel (and how the desired tensile strength is achieved along with the aero shape.

RE: F1 and Turbos

you do know that you can use carbon in other ways than just carbon fiber right??

the turbine would be and EXCELLENT component to make from carbon/ceramic (brakes are made from this)

you will see cylinders made from Aluminum embedded with Si-Ca (also know as metal matrix composites) your headers and exxhuast valves will remain iconel. they would probably like to use titanium, but with being mandatory to run petrol and not alky, they cant take the heat...

check this place out for lots of "in the know"  material

http://www.ret-monitor.com/articles/welcome/

RE: F1 and Turbos

My experience of pure carbon and air and red heat is the carbon starts to burn.

turbine housings and wheels get red hot.

Brake rotors do not get quite as hot as exhausts and I believe F1 rotors only last one race.

Also carbon/carbon materials are quite brittle. Even high nickel cast iron housings crack fairly regularly.

Also carbon/carbon materials are VERY expensive.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &
http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm
for site rules
 

RE: F1 and Turbos

F1 brake rotors reach almost 2000F (hotter than the turbine wheel would ever get). You could cut out the aero shape of a carbon composite wheel in the exact same way current compressor wheels are machined.

Cost would be a complete non issue were talking about a sport where budgets are almost non existent. There are already people with way smaller budgets and far less knowledge using carbon for engine sleeves and pistons for the same reasons; lower mass, higher strength, and lower thermal expansion.

Not sure why your so ready to attack the idea of using carbon composites, what would you suggest they be made out of?

RE: F1 and Turbos

There was a time when 'wet dream' technology was everywhere in F1.

Unfortunately, today, F1 would not be sustainable >as a business<, and therefore not sustainable at all, without some limits on the costs.  Standardized engines are one such limit.



 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: F1 and Turbos

Well at the very least it would be Al and Ti. They already do that in rally aplications, no sense in using inconel since all you would be doing is adding mass. Carbon would definitely be the choice for the housings.

RE: F1 and Turbos

Aluminium has rather poor strength at red heat.

Every turbo I ever saw being dynoed had the turbine glowing red hot.

Every housing I saw with Ceramachrome coating had a dull finish after a few miles. That happens when the aluminium in the coating boils off.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &
http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm
for site rules
 

RE: F1 and Turbos

benmp, I'm skeptical but curious.  Do you know of a proven process where the carbon fibres could be laid up in a turbine wheel blank and subsequently machined to final shape while retaining the desired stress flow?  If so, please provide details.
Do you have the yield strength vs temperature data for carbon composite (as used in F1 brakes) at 2000F?

RE: F1 and Turbos

To be honest I had to look around and do a little research but CNC filament winding seems to be the best way to make a turbine or compressor wheel from a carbon composite. From the start I think there was some confusion that I was talking about typical "carbon fiber" which would not be ideal for this application (although maybe for the compressor housing). I do not have the data for yield strength on anything on a formula one car as i suspect you would have to kill for that ;)

RE: F1 and Turbos

Pat, I meant to imply that the compressor would be aluminum and the turbine would be Ti. I don't think an aluminum turbine wheel would last more than 30 seconds.

RE: F1 and Turbos

I agree.

Carbon or aluminium are OK for the compressor, although I expect thin is as important as light for a compressor wheel. Titanium or carbon should be better than aluminium when modulus and density are taken into account to design it thin and rigid.

Aluminium is obviously fine for compressor housings. The Garrett sitting at my feet has an aluminium compressor housing.

I really don't think any type of carbon will withstand constant blasts of hot exhaust gas while under high cyclic loads.  

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &
http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm
for site rules
 

RE: F1 and Turbos

Carbon-Carbon- Quasi-isotropic Youngs Modulus properties for non post temperature treated are aprox 28000N/mm^2

Can bond it.
Can weld it
Can machine it, (Mill eg)
Can cut it (hacksaw etc)
Can thread it.
Density between 1.4 to 1.7gm/cc
very low coefficient of Friction (basically graphite)
It handles thermal shock extremely well.
CTE in plain is virtually non-existent
Dimensionally stable

Design to fatigue allowable about 120N/mm^2

Limitation is that it will oxidise after 450 Deg.C.

Cheapest source in UK (there is a lot of scrap around and no use).

 

RE: F1 and Turbos

"Aluminum embedded with Si-Ca (also know as metal matrix composites)"

Is that like the Chebby Vega?  

RE: F1 and Turbos

Vegas were made of iron oxide with a little iron mixed in.

 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: F1 and Turbos

Back to the original q... I'd like to F1 develop and perfect (so the aftermarket can run with it) the electric assist turbo.

RE: F1 and Turbos

As a form of anti-lag technology?

RE: F1 and Turbos

You wouldn't want aluminum on the turbine side.
Aluminum anneals around 600f and melts around 600 c. EGTs on a highly tuned street car can go over 900 c. I wouldn't be surprised if F1 technology pushed it further than that.
I also don't know of a thermoset or thermoplastic composite that can handle anywhere near those temps. I did a lot of research a while back trying to find a very high temp nonmetallic composite and found some very expensive aerospace materials that could take a lot of heat. I don't remember the max but I am pretty sure it wasn't near that high.
The other thing to remember is the highes temp composites (At leas that I know of) are rated for intermittent high temps.

I would imagine a ceramic turbine wheel would be about as good as you would get. I don't know a whole lot about solid carbon materials though.

I have thought a lot about a thinner lighter turbine housing. I thought about sheet metal and it may be possible but I see downsides as well. If the material is too thin or not rigid enough it could move around way too much with heat and vibration.
 If I were to make my own I think I would probably try and machine two halves out of 321 SS or other very high temp metal then weld them together. You can already get cast SS turbine housings which may be a good option with a little PNP work.
One downside is SS can have a pretty high CTE
The compressor housing and possibly wheel could be done in composite. I think gains would be negligible but in F1 eyes maybe worth it.  
I'm sure they would have crazy anti lag systems though and at that point who cares about spool time.  

RE: F1 and Turbos

SAAB has used electric assist turbos on production vehicles (sorry no links on hand.) Also acts as an alternator.

RE: F1 and Turbos

Not quite the same but not far off: these small turbo-jets have a permanent magnet generator integrated into the turbine shaft between the bearings to act as both starter motor and generator:
http://www.tdi-engines.com/products.php

PJGD

RE: F1 and Turbos

Electric assist turbo seemed silly till you brought up being able to generate energy from it. Also using it as a generator would probably allow you to eliminate the wastegate and limit the speed with the generator.
On the other hand you don't get anything for free and while the generator was making power the exhaust backpressure would go up considerably making the motor work a lot less efficiently. It also seems you may want to alter cam timing if you had too much backpressure to keep exhaust from pushing back into the cyl.

With the added weight and complexity I have a hard time imagining them doing this on F1 but I guess it's possible. Most other anti lag systems require fuel which is a very valued resource where in rally it's not so much.
 

RE: F1 and Turbos

I thought current "state of the art" rally anti-lag involved large diameter, low velocity ducting immediately pre-throttle, and air injection pre-turbine for spoolup instead of in-manifold combustion.

At least, modern rally cars certainly don't sound like they did fifteen years ago.  No more bangbang.  I suspect that limitations on the number of spare turbochargers per car/team had a lot to do with that.

RE: F1 and Turbos

Another method, a one-off as far as I know is used by a gentleman named Nic Mann in his homebuild 4wd hillclimb car.

The 1700 Ford BDA has a turbo, but Nic doesn't like turbo lag so he uses the exhaust from a helicopter APU turbine to keep the turbo spinning - no connection to the piston engine exhaust at all.  This is a gross over-simplification, a lot of thought has gone into the system and indeed the whole car.

It goes rather well and the soundtrack is a bit unusual too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11687nVdzdk

Nick

RE: F1 and Turbos

If you drive your supercharger (a turbo is just an exhaust gas driven supercharger) with another engine, you increase the effective capacity of the cars engine by the capacity of the second engine

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &
http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm
for site rules
 

RE: F1 and Turbos

Using a chopper APU exhaust to spin a turbo to compress air to supercharge an engine sounds a bit convoluted to me. The APU has a compressor built-in which could spare some compressed air. If that isn't enough, drive another compressor directly from the APU shaft.

Engineering is the art of creating things you need, from things you can get.

RE: F1 and Turbos

Using some form of Ceramic material such as (silicon carbide, silicon nitride) for bearings on the turbo shaft would be a good step. Would also be a fantastic material for the turbine. If only there was a way to fix them to the shaft reliably.

Jurica

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources