Mailing List flyrotary@lancaironline.net Message #49620
From: George Lendich <lendich@aanet.com.au>
Subject: Re: [FlyRotary] Re: Waste Heat was [Fly Rotary] Re: Air Flow Question
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 07:56:59 +1000
To: Rotary motors in aircraft <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Ed,
Taking your idea of looking at BTU of fuel further, I'm wondering if we shouldn't be removing from the calculations, the loss of BTU through the exhaust and heat transfer from the engine to the air in the cowl. Looks like 20% of energy going by the exhaust valve, some of which is removed by the oil, but still a fair bit going out the exhaust.
What's your take on that idea. Perhaps it something that could be looked at in the take-off and climb figures, to compare to cruise figures, in an endeavour to get a balanced view of overall need.
George ( down under)
 

Ok, George, you got it.  I just want to emphasize that  converting the HP of your engine to its equivalent to BTU of heat energy really does not tell you how much WASTE heat you need to get rid of – at least not directly.  You can generally assume if you are producing more HP you will also have more waste heat to get rid of.   But if you want to really get a handle on how much, then you have to figure how much of the total energy in the gasoline is going to work, exhaust and cooling uses of that energy.

 

Ed

 


From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of George Lendich
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 4:27 AM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Waste Heat was [Fly Rotary] Re: Air Flow Question

 

Ed,

That's an interesting, and obviously valid approach, didn't think of 'the old BTU's in fuel used approach' -that goes in my notes as well.

Nothing much is wasted on me, provided I can understand it, of course.

I like the way you think Ed, I realized where the 18 knots came from - silly me, 10% of cruise. 

 

I am currently rehashing my figures, like you Ed, I like to validate the proximity of need using the maths, at least it gives a valid starting point and a core understanding.

 

George (down under)

 

Hi George,

 

Like many results of using equations – what you get out depends on what you put in {:>).

 

1st there is 42.41 BTU/min per HP.  So 42.41 *270 = 11450.7 BTU/Min - as you calculated  – BUT (big but) that is the heat energy needed to produce 270 HP – that is NOT the waste heat energy you need to get rid of.   The  amount you calculated is basically the heat energy to produce 270 HP of mechanical work (turning the prop).  What you want to figure out is how much “waste” heat you need to get rid of (that is - the heat energy  not used to rotate the prop).   That waste heat is the heat that has not/can not be used to produce mechanical work.  Waste heat is generally gotten rid of two ways – out the exhaust stack and through convection (coolant and oil) system in our engines.  So you are primarily interested in how much heat you must get rid of by convection (coolant and oil) systems.

 

 

Here is my method and how I got the 8288 BTU/min .  Again,  your calculation does gives you the amount of heat energy in  BTU that produces 270 HP - that heat has been used doing work by your engine,  however, that is NOT  the heat you are getting rid of through your coolers –.   For cooling purposes, you want to find the BTUs of heat energy you need to get rid of that is NOT producing power  - or in other words - the waste heat (I think I repeated myself).

 

Again,   the HP of work your engine is producing is NOT the heat energy that you have to get rid of through your two cooling systems (radiators and oil coolers) (oops repeated myself again – but the distinction is crucial!)

 

Here is how I arrived at my figures for the waste heat.  There is more than one way to do this for sure and the results depends a lot on your heat allocation (more on that in a bit).

 

Using a air/flow and air density and a formula for a 3 rotor,  I calculated that at a 12.65:1 air/fuel ratio (best power – so not cruise {:>)) that you would burn around 25.2 GPH at 270 HP.

 

Using the old and simply (but good)  approx power formula, I calculate HP = 25.2 * 6 /0.55 =  274.9 HP which is pretty close to the results (270 HP) of my more complex calculation

 

which is based on engine air/flow and fuel mass consumed at that ratio. So 25.2 GPH is a pretty valid figure for our fuel consumption at that power.

 

 

However,  I calculate engine HP from a different approach (got to make it more complex, you know  {:>)).  My approach is   based on the total  number of BTU in the amount of fuel

 

ingested by the engine to meet the power requirement (270 HP)  with following heat energy allocation:  If your percentage of energy allocation is different, then you will get a different results:

 

24% = HP (useful mechanical work) – some folks may think this is too conservative, but I tend to be that way when calculating HP.

50%= out the Exhaust

26% = Cooling Waste (coolant + oil)

 

 

We know coolant = 2/3 of  26% Cooling Waste and the oil = 1/3.

 

 

There is approx 19000-20000 BTU/lbm in gasoline (I use 19000 BTU/pound  to be a bit conservative – besides 100LL has less energy than 87 Mogas {:>)

 

So with 25.2 GPH * 6 lbm/gallon  = 151 lbm/hour/60 = 2.52 lbm/min of gasoline  is being burned to produce the energy so out engine produces 270 HP.

 

So 2.52 *19000 BTU/Lbm  =  47880 BTU/min total energy of the fuel consumed per minute at the 25.2 GPH rate.  This total includes the work energy (HP)  and the waste energy.

 

So to find out the heat used to produce work 24% *47880 BTU/min =  11491.2 BTU/min – Now that is not much different from what you got 11450.7 BTU/Min.  But, as I stated this is

 

NOT the waste heat you need to reject.

 

 

So Allocation of heat energy we need to get rid of through the cooling system, we have

 

26% = cooling waste = 0.26 * 47880 =  12448.8 BTU/Min  of which 2/3 is rejected through radiator , therefore

 

0.6666 * 12448.8 = 8298 BTU/Min of waste heat through the radiators.  (does not include waste heat through the oil which is 12448.8 – 8298 = 4150.8 BTU/min).

 

So altogether the radiator and oil cooler has to get rid of around 12500 BTU/min at that power level – so you can see that if you do not have adequate cooling at 270 HP power production you are going to fry  your engine fairly quickly. 

 

This is how it appears to me, George.  Hope it helps.

 

 

 

Ed

 

 

 


From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of George Lendich
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 6:01 PM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Air Flow Question

 

Ed,

I have been terribly busy, but wanted to follow this thread and finally got around to it, but can't understand where you got 8288 BTU/min. 

 

If 1hp = 2545BTU/hr /60 =42.41BTU/min x 270hp=1145.7 btu/min of which we are needing only 2/3 of water cooling, as 1/3 is done by the oil . Therefore 2/3 of 1145.7=7633.8 btu/min. Did I go wrong somewhere ?

 

Also I didn't know we were looking for 18knots as optimum air speed flow through the rad. I did a quick copy of your calculations and got 28 knots for 125 hp, so I will have to redefine my cooling set-up.

 

Ed, I like the maths approach. Is Tracy following this line of thought i.e. calculating for cooling, as an Engineer I assumed he would be doing something following this line of approach?

George ( down under)

Thomas, it doesn’t work quite that way.  Old Bernoulli’s law is (simplified by removing density) is A1V1 = A2V2 meaning the product of the area and velocity anywhere in your duct is equal.  Something to do with conservation of mass (can’t created/destroy it). So it based on area expansion rather than volume. 

 

So to determine (more or less) the air velocity you need to know the velocity of the air entering your duct (and the inlet area) and the area down stream that you are expanding.  However, determining the velocity of air entering your duct may not be as simple as it first seems due to a condition known as external diffusion.  This is the air streaming being slowed down in front of the inlet  due to a pressure gradient extending out of your duct opening (you can sort of think of it as air molecules piling up before your core and increasing the pressure back out your duct).

 

Where to Start?  Either find an installation very similar to yours that is cooling adequate and copy that OR you can do some figuring on the back of an envelope.

 

You gotta start somewhere and Mr. Horner indicated that you need to have the airflow through your core either 10% of your cruise speed or 30% of your climb speed. 

 

So if your cruise speed is 180 knots then you would want the airflow through your core to be ideally around 18knots.

 

Just as an example (disregarding external diffusion) lets say your inlet opening A1  was 20 x2 = 40 sq inches = 40/144 =  0.277 sq ft then if you want 18.4 knots the area in the duct at A2 then you solve for A2

 

A1V1 = A2V2 so solving for A2 = A1V1/V2 = 0.277 * 180/18 = 2.777 sq ft or 2.777 * 144 = 400 square inches or an appox 10:1 difference between opening and expanded area.

 

However, another couple of wizards (Kuchumman and Weber) indicated that for good diffusion, your ratio of inlet area to area before your core should be between 0.25 and 0.40 - going beyond that you start to go bad.

 

So lets say you need 400 sq inches to accommodate your radiator core, then according to K&W your inlet would need to be between 0.25 and 0.40 X 400  = 100 – 160 sq inches  The larger inlet would also tend to diminish the external diffusion effect but not slow the air velocity as much as the smaller opening.. 

 

However we still have A1V1 = A2V2  so with A1 at 100 sq inch (0.694 sq ft) and assuming inlet air velocity is 180 knots and now having A2 fixed at 400 sq inch or 2.777 sq ft we have V2 = A1V1/A2 = 0.694 * 180/2.777 = 45 kts.

 

So our air velocity at the core is a bit higher than we would like (according to Horner) so while it will cool, we may be encountering more cooling drag due to the higher velocity air through the core than we would like.

 

But, this is just a back of the envelope calculation.  So many things can affect cooling, we should be so lucky that it would be just one major thing.

 

Where I would Start:

 

I personally think the place to start is to 1st size your radiator core based on the heat you want to get rid of in  your worst case situation (probably take off/climb).  Since few of us have wind tunnels, starting with a rule of thumb for core volume to HP would probably be a good place to start.

 

Then looking at your space constraints to determine your radiator size.  I would not go much thicker than 3” .  NASCAR car radiators are typically around 3” in thickness with some going up to 7” thick for the higher speed long tracks at speeds comparable to ours.  Also whatever the radiator builders have sort of mandates what you use.

 

So I think you mentioned a rule of thumb of 1.8 cubic inch of core/HP ( I personally feel this may be a little on the low side).  Assuming 270 HP max engine power then that would indicate a core volume of approx 1.8 * 270 =  486 cubic inches (lets round it up to an “even” 500 cubic inches).  Assuming you find a core 3” thick then its front area would need to be 500/3 = 166.6 sq inches.  So that could be 16 wide and 10” high or  27.7 inches wide by 6” high or what ever combination – again likely constrained by what the manufactures build.

 

But let’s say you chose 16 x10 x3 radiator.  The next thing you need to know is how much airflow you must have through it to dissipate the heat (coolant only in this example).  For a three rotor producing 270 hp the coolant needs to get rid of approx 8288 BTU/Minute.   Assuming we can add heat to the cooling air increasing its temperature by 80F (might get 100),

Then the air mass required can be found from Q (BTU) = M(mass)*Dt*Cp rearranging the formula

 

M = Q/ Dt*Cp = 8288/(80*0.25) = 414.4 lbm/min of air.  One Cubic foot of air at sea level = 0.0765 lbm

So air flow in CFM = 414.4/0.0765 =  5416 CFM of cooling air.  We need to pass that through the frontal area of our core (166.6 sq inches /144 = 1.1569 sq ft).   5416 / 1.1569 = 4681 ft/min of air velocity or dividing by 60 = 78.01 ft/sec = 46 knots air velocity through your core (166.6 sq inch).  Not quite the 18 kts Horner wanted but at least a start.  So what does this tell us.  That if we want to get by with the ideal (slower)  airflow through the core (18 kts) then our core frontal area needs to be larger than 166 sq inches. 

 

Back to A1V1 = A2V2 if we need 46 knots through 1.1569 sq ft of core frontal area and V1 (assuming no external diffusion) = 180 kts then the inlet A1 = 46 * 1.569/180 = 0.4 sq ft inlet = 0.4 * 144 = 57.7 sq inch inlet opening.  Now remember this is all looking at cooling a cruise – where things are best.   Conditions during take off and climbout are going to be worst case.  So you need to do all of this for those airspeeds as well

 

Note there are a whole bunch of assumptions made to simplify things which may not hold true in all cases.

The first major one is the rule of thumb 1.8 cubic inch /Hp.  IF your core is fabricated similar to the core from which this rule of thumb was drawn then you are probably OK.  But, if substantive different then this rule of thumb may not be valid and then your basic assumption is flawed and need I add all following that   is now garbage.

 

The alternative to all of this stuff – is to find an installation as close as possible to yours that is cooling adequately and use that as you cooling system design basis.

 

Sorry – got carried away.

 

Ed

 


From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Thomas Mann
Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 2:04 PM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Air Flow Question

 

If I have a volume of air entering my scoop at 180 kts and expand the volume of the chamber by 400% can I expect the speed of the airflow to drop to 45 kts at that point?

 

T Mann



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