Why not an evaporative (swamp) intercooler?

[Torquey]

Knowing the heat of evaporation of water is huge, why not take the hot air from a turbocharger and run it through, what is essentially, a household swamp cooler? It seems that would be the most effective way to get cool, compressed air to the intake ports. The humidified charge would not burn as fast but I wouldn't expect that to be much of a problem.

 

[gijim]

Is that not, in essence, a water injection system? I think either way water is a consumable product...

 

[Torquey]

With swamp cooling, you are cooling the turbocharger air AND you are cooling the water left behind inside the swamp cooler. Just like a household swamp cooler, the water inside and the air exiting the cooler will continue to get colder (up to a point, of course). So, is this, in essence, water injection?

 

[patprimmer]

A given mass of water absorbs a given amount of heat to evaporate. Whether that is all directed to the air, or some to the source water then the air as the source water evaporates is a minor point.

What you are talking about is already done by water injection and has been done since at least WW11. See numerous other detailed threads for details.

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[Torquey]

Let me just say this... if you're water injecting something, or for that matter, liquid injecting anything, care must be taken to inject an amount well under the saturation point of the air, otherwise, you would have that liquid drueling down the cylinder walls. With a pressurized swamp cooler, one could saturate or nearly saturate the air, thus offering a much fatter temperature drop to the incoming air. But just because the air is water saturated does not mean the air is fuel saturated. I've never heard of an engine running bad due to periods of extreme humidity. I'm attracted to the simplicity of the idea... no worries about too much or too little water injection.

 

[patprimmer]

Maybe the engineers who designed WW11 aircraft engines got it all wrong.

Have you searched and read the previous threads on this topic. Some of the posts were done by real engineers with real data. You really should read them.

Regards

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[Fabrico]

There is little to support that a virtual swamp cooler would provide a greater temperature drop than precise direct injection.

The aircraft of WWII must have had more than a simple garden hose setup to very successfully accomplish the task.

 

[patprimmer]

Try thread71-72284.

There are others

Regards

eng-tips, by professional engineers for professional engineers
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

 

[Slow]

Here's some real data:

http://www.tc.gc.ca/TDC/publication...rch="water injection cylinder pressure graph"