Now that KERS will bite the dust in 2010 could Turbos be a replacement?

They more or worked on the same principle to boost power to the engine and technology has come a long way since the late 80's
so surly maintaining them won't be a problem. Besides most other motorsport uses them so why not the pinnicle?

Dried up cow pat could be an option too but as usual in F1 politics surrounding the rulebook will leave cow dung's potential out to waste.

After all it is politics that has caused the Gentleman's agreement against KERS anyway (technically it's still legal in the rulebook).

One way may be to catch air into a storage tank under braking and use that to boost the engine. No safety issues with batteries etc.

Another maybe using regenerative braking to charge a hydraulic system to give the boost.

Springs?

How do you propose to store energy in a non compressable liquid?

Get it spinning within a tank?

With a big key on top to wind it up.

I dub thee .......... Indycar.

I think you must have said that tongue in cheek...hydraulic hybrids are well known. You use a hydraulic pump to pressurize an accumulator which stores the energy by compressing a spring or pressurizing a gas bladder. They have been tested on heavy vehicles--like garbage trucks--which, given the state of F1 these days would be an appropriate use of the technology...

Directly pressurizing air won't work--it is very inefficient to pump up air to useful pressures because it is compressible (it is a somewhat different proposition in a gas bladder accumulator).

Hydraulic hybrid systems may be a bit heavy for F1 (because of the fluid weight) but would be less dangerous than electrical systems. You can discharge them at least as quickly as you charge them and as often as you like.

I think you have contradicted yourself there - an accumulator using compressed air is exactly the same as compressed air storage although much less space efficient because a fully charged accumulator has only a fraction of its total volume occupied by the compressed gas. Used as a compressor receiver the same vessel will hold much more energy. An accumulator using a steel spring is even worse.

In terms of efficiency of space, mass and energy recovery, the systems available for F1 (electric or flywheel) are superior to all those suggested above.

F1 cars are already fitted with hydraulic accumulators, they are a part of the hydraulic system and supply hydraulic pressure when the hydraulic pump alone isn't able to do so. The McLaren KERS system from around ten years ago was also hydraulic I believe.

Directly pressurizing air also work, the pressurized air can also be heated using exhaust heat, that will provide an additional 'boost'.
http://www.cargine.com/tech3.html

The pressurized air from the tanks can also be used to supercharge the engine for short periods of time.

From what I've seen this year of KERS usage, I think that while the engine is not allowed to go even a 100 rpm above the limit for a short time, there will be very small effect from power boost. Rev limiter usually goes on and acts as a brake just when a chasing driver is in a position to attack the one in front of him.
I don't see a viable reason for additional power units while the natural power of the engine is artificially limited. And IMO rev limiting is the worst of the possible ways to do so.

The rev limiter has nothing to do with KERS, 80 hp more is 80 hp more.

Plus the agreement behind not to use KERS is not based on any failure of the technology. It is only based on the cost. (Heard that before haven't we?)

Someone forgot to tell Lewis Hamilton and Kimi that.

True but additional power proved to be worthy at starts and to for defending position. Quite less for overtaking which is the factor that makes races interesting.

I mean what the final effect of more power is planned to be. If it is only to have short power bursts why the effort and money to build complicated gismos? While the engine itself can give more power if unrestricted for a short period. And this will really give usable advantage IMO.

I guess this goes somewhat OT, but if turbos (or other boost devices) are introduced, under current heavy restrictions they'll have the same unsatisfactory effect.

Track layout messes the concept also. You have one single passing point on most of the trcks, everyone will hit the button at the same time and nothing happens.

More effective would be giving like 40 bursts per race, so at some time someone would have an advantage. Or even better 2' with +500 RPM per race.

The Williams' KERS and the proposed spring loaded system

I think the plan was to introduce a push-to-pass system along with a tentative step towards "green" lip service since KERS can be recharged at zero fuel cost. If the rules were progressively relaxed to allow increased storage, power limits and usage frequency, KERS could have become a platform for F1 to be involved in hybrid vehicle development and innovation.

Putting aside that I am perhaps old fashioned and want to see F1 racing cars driven only by ICE, I think the large gap between race cars and road cars impose totally different requirements on rechargeable power systems. Thus making the efforts and investments for F1 KERS a kind of a showcase that such system is achievable. Yes, there are unique technological solutions but they seem to me inapplicable for mass production. And as to the 'green' aspect, if we take only the cycle of producing and disposing off the batteries, it is nullified IMO in general aspect.
Those resources should have been directed to R&D aimed at increasing the efficiency of the classic ICE instead of 'freezing' them. It is far more relevant to road cars. F1 is about excessive power and speed, not a showcase for economy and ecology. It is too small on global scale. FIA could create a dedicated series where endurance, economy, energy recovery and utilization as well as eco friendliness be the leading principle. My personal opinion.

And, as someone on this BB has said once, turbo is the most simple solution to utilize wasted energy.

The challenge is to produce hybrid technology without batteries. Flywheel KERS for example.

Bringing back Turbos could have a massive affect on overtaking.

After all, you would have a choice of increasing boost to overtake. If they regulate tank sizes that would mean you could only open up the tap a certain number of times per race.

I can hear the cries of "that was Group C" but we are in an energy sensitive world these days and Turbo engines would on the whole be more economical anyway. It would be very hard for a car to defend 100+ horsepower advantage from a chasing car if they are going to run out of fuel!!

Not if everyone had turbos.

The "bring back turbos" threads never end.

Turbo engines are under a huge strain, in their prime, the used different engines between qualifying and race -the costs were ridiculous in 90s terms.

Turbo race engines are generally less economical, requiring much richer mixtures when running at high boost.

Edit. Diesel is the obvious exception.

I guess you must have missed all the overtaking that has been done with KERS equipped cars. No matter if you're going to defend or overtake KERS will give you a boost of 80 hp which will help you with both. Of course, since a KERS equipped car can better defend it's position it will be harder for non KERS cars to overtake.



The green issue can be solved by demanding the use of a maximum of for instance 4 KERS systems per car and season.



What fuel mixture a turbo engine demands depend much on the fuel properties and compression ratio. Another important factor is the maximum exhaust temperature. The Honda F1 turbo from the eighties did for instance run with lambda 0.87 for maximum power and lambda 0.98 for maximum economy (with a powerloss of about 10%). Today direct injection have made it possible to run even leaner.

Anything could happen in a thread like this...

Lots of "winding up" everywhere on this forum.

But I would think they would be limited to a low boost.

If that being "less economical" is true, then why was the so heralded Ford Cosworth no match for the turbocharged Gp C cars of the early gp. C years?
Or why were the atmo 1988 F1 cars using up 180 or so liters of fuel while the turbos used only 150 liters?


henri

I guess it depends on boost levels. An optimised turbo engine is generally more efficient than NA but the advantage is reversed if high boost levels (and very rich mixtures) are needed for the turbo engine to compete. I think direct injection will give the turbo engines a bigger edge in the future.

In addition to using less fuel, they were also about 90 hp stronger with max output, and about 25 hp stronger when run in economy mode using 2.5 bar absulte pressure. If the boost pressure was reduced, the BSFC increased.

And yet another con the 1988 turbos had to deal with that year:
their minimum weight was 540 kg agaisnt the atmo's 500.
Thus more weight to move as well

Thus despite being more heavy (8%) and restricted in fuel capacity, the top 1988 turbos were more powerful yet more fuel efficient then the atmos that year.
And faster too for that matter....
Makes you wonder what such engines, with the latest kind of developments could achieve against atmos nowadays.

So what about those inefficient turbocharged engines?


Henri

Whatkind of efficency numbers that have?

Typical compressor 80%, typical expander 80%, so round trip is 64% less other losses. It is probably worse than that in practice.