Bingo. its all about what you want and how much you have to spend. just a compromise really.

here are few intercooler pics of f1 turbo setups from the early eighties...interesting endtank design.

 

^^^ Those first two are from the BMW museum about ~15 mins from here, pretty cool stuff. Divided housing, single gate too

As for the CFD, the group I'm in at work does a ton and I've done a bit also. CFD is 100% in the boundary conditions. Just about any program will give you a numerical answer, but it's not always easy to get an answer to the question you 'think' you are asking.

Since this is all subsonic flow, it would be interesting to assemble the rest of the intercooler in CAD and simulate the passages also. You could leave out the inner turbulators on the air passages to simplify things. I'm betting this would have a decent impact on your end tank velocity contours.

 

Leebro, that's how I tested my design. I actually modelled the core with the correct amount of passages etc ... Obviously I left out the tiny fins inside, but you could see the air flow was turbulent right as is entering those passages.

 

x3

 

Very interesting thread, thank you for sharing.
(I'll sit back and continue to learn)

 

[QUOTE=javierb14;41028020]Bingo. its all about what you want and how much you have to spend. just a compromise really.

Those formula 1 intercoolers are designed to fit in a certain space so I am sure they aren't an ideal example to go by ,but they are interesting. Leebro I did test a full intercooler model ( just a quick thrown together model) it was really interesting seeing how much of an impact this does have. I modeled it without the inner turbulators ,but it did still have a big impact especially on the exiting end tank. BTW, I am getting ANSYS very soon so I want to compare how the simulations in fluent compare with these.

 

Awesome.

Glad to hear that other people care about this kind of thing. I made a tool in Excel to analyze intercooler core performance and nobody seemed to care. I'm happy to see some other people are interested in these kinds of things

https://honda-tech.com/forums/forced-induction-16/looking-some-intercooler-measurements-fin-count-thickness-etc-2695643/

 

Here's a little something I did. Turbulence of the inlet is so bad that air doesn't even flow through all the tubes. Air shows huge velocity drops, and is not the same through all the tubes. This will prove to be worse with the inlet/exit tubes placed more towards the bottom end of the intercooler. I will later do fins inside the tanks and I'm willing to test any design that you guys recommend.

 

This is an interesting read.

 

can anyone do a with/without and show the benifit of having fins in the endtanks for more eve air distribution?

 

I think those results are exactly what you would expect from that tank design, but still interesting and worthwhile to see the results. It goes without saying that the inlet tank is going to be the problem, so you need to find a way to deal with the adverse pressure gradient. And, this is picking at details, but turbulence generally is descriptive of the fluid behavior at a small scale. That doubling back of the fluid you see is probably better described as "separation" or "recirculation".

Guide vanes in the end tank would be a good theoretical solution, but in practice I think you might have some issues from a fabrication stand point. A cast tank with dividers would be awesome though!

 

This is what I did really quick for the next test. A fancy curvy design vs. a plain straight fence.

 

im not promoting anything, but treadstone tr12?? cooler has a diverter,

 

Do you have measurements?? I'd be willing to try it

The results are in. The fancier fences perform better as I thought. The air is spread out more evenly and has a higher velocity then the bottom half of this intercooler design. Both fins seem to be an improvement over the one without fins. I can now go over and fix some of the fins for maximum flow, but by this point I think we all get the point and I would like to move on to another design. If you have exact measurements and pix, I can test something else.

 

here is a link to their site:
http://www.treadstoneperformance.com...5&phot_key=731

Core Size, 12" X 22" X 3.5/4.5"
Overall lenght 30"
3" inlet/outlet

 

I saw that. I meant fin, tube, end tank lengths. The more precise the better the results. I think I will be moving this thread this isn't really welding/fabrication related.

 

I would like to see more on this subject and I think it is still within the realm of fabrication since people that build intercoolers will see this and it will influence future intercoolers. I know when I build my intercooler it will have fins to guide the airflow, but that is just me.

 

i would like to see a dual backdoor flow test like fullrace's backdoor







dimensions 24x12x3.5 with 3in inlets an outlets ...overall lenth 30"

 

i personally own a treadstone tr10 which dosnt have a diverter. so i cant help with masutments unless the cores and parts of end tanks are the same.

 

i like where this thread is going. i wish i had a cfd software i could play with.

 

moved the tread to https://honda-tech.com/forums/showth...1#post41061199. I also did a backdoor style there.

 

Anyone still have a copy of these images? OP?

 

Anybody ever fab an intercooler like this with the endtanks at the top and bottom?

 

your endtanks will always be perpendicular to the veins. so this one from an F1 car can be looked at the same as most intercoolers that you see today, just taller than it is long