The way I am doing cooling is a fairly simple approach

1. Determine heat rejection needs at full load at varying RPM

2. Determine Average mass flow of fuel during endurance lap

3. Determine radiator size needed to reject this number.

4. Determine fan size needed to reject maximum number

Well, I just did a little thinking. Our engine is 600cc, and is raced pretty hard at FSAE. Being around
motorcycles for a long time, I've noticed that the factory motorcycle race teams always put on larger
radiators. So, it made sense to not use a 600cc radiator, but pick one from a larger displacement sportbike.
Most sportbike radiators are curved, but not all are. The '93-'94 Honda CBR900RR and '98-'00 Honda
CBR1000XX radiators are flat. We used a XX radiator with 2 smaller puller style fans without any problems,
and I believe we could go to 1 slightly larger fan. I just purchased another XX radiator off E-bay for $50. I
love E-bay. I have not seen a RR radiator on E-bay, so good luck. The extreme sportbike guys crash those
bikes A LOT making videos.

Yes, I do realize that there should be some analysis going into the cooling system design, but the testing
proved that what we have works and holds any temperature we set in the ECU. More testing will prove if we
can get rid of the weight of one fan. Cheap, aluminum and light, and it works. Well, only cheap if you get
them used. The XX radiator is $500 from a dealer, and the RR radiator is $600.

Cyclone Racing
www.cyclone-racing.com/fhome.htm
Iowa State University
Project Director

We basically used the stock engine (f4i) setup as a baseline, and took water temps before and after the
radiator with no forced convection (no fan) as a worst case scenario. Sized the radiator based on the NTU-
effectiveness method from there.

In terms of weight savings, just for fun we chopped our main rubber coolant line and replaced it with about
18in of aluminum tube with small rubber ends. We saved 1/3lb over the rubber alone.

Hey i just went through all the post in this article and i really cant understand how to get the area of heat
transfer of a radiator core while calculating the NTU( NTU=UA/Cmin)............
can anyone pls help me out with this???

Well, the air-side transfer area is the total area of all the fins, (both sides) plus the tubes, (assume
negligible losses other than the core)
The water-side transfer area is the inner wetted area of the tubes.

Nitesh,

as regards core size please read the many posts on this thread already: to summarise i could give you a
core size but it would mean nothing as it subsequently depends on fin geometry, fin material gauge, fin
pack, louvers, tube profile, tube wall gauge, tube dimple pattern aka turbulence promoters (if any), core
layout, and many other factors. size alone means next to nothing.

Twin radiators have the benefit of being two smaller rather than one larger unit: you can use two smaller
sidepods then. You may think that two half size cores would be equivalent to one full size one, but they
usually aren't, as the flow enters the first core, gets cooled and enters the 2nd colder obviously. what this
means is that the delta t between coolant and ambient air isn't as great, therefore less heat is taken from
core 2. A taller single core would have a slower flow rate across more tubes, rejecting more heat to
ambient.

the fan should be specced so that the fan's pressure curve crosses the rad's pressure drop curve. the point
where they meet is the rate that the fan wil pull air through. If this is sufficient from your heat rejection 3d
plots, then you will effectively cool the coolant when the car is stationary (assuming all your ducting is good
and airtight)

 i'm just coming to the end of my first year of cooling. the only experimental knowledge i
have (wasn't given any resources to do testing) is that our CBR 600 F4i doesn't overheat with
2 radiators 210 x 210 core size, normal aspiration, poorly ducted.

this year i've tried to come up with a single radiator system based on theory. i've based things on
wanting to lose 30% of max engine power.

some people have been talking on this thread about engine power and coolant load both being a third of
heat added (exhaust enthalpy being the other third). i've seen figures that agree with this in a book but
they were for a family car at steady load (not max power). anyway, i think you're gonna be massively
overspecced if you do that for forumla student! remember that max power is only achieved at max
engine speed. the rest of the speed range is much much less.

i used the NTU method to find out radiator effectiveness, the big problem (apart from whether theory is
anything like reality!) is the mass flow rates, particularly airside, ie. see jonno, prelude, dave etc.'s
previous posts about shrouding and flow.

airside flow: you guys all seem to use fans so you know what flow you can get. this is gonna drain a bit
(given you need flow rate >0.3 kg/s?) of power and weigh a ton isn't it? well specced 2 rad system
should weigh less than 10 kgs. presumably you don't see much benefit from using the motion of the car
to force air through your system since fan reduces the flow area?

was gonna pipe in a flow meter to see what flow rates i get from standard mechanically driven water
pump (at max engine speed/power) but was told not to (only 3rd year!). anyway, has anyone got any
tips for how to measure

what mass flow you can achieve?

rad stuff- temp drops/flows (cheaply!)?
what you need to lose

i think the airside mass flow is the main factor. would you find this out from average car speed to find
average heat loss? is 1/3 max engine power then a good average heat you need to lose?

anyway, gonna go testing and see whether my one underspecced rad somehow does the job. if not
gonna add one more little one!

anyone got any advice on sizing an oil cooler? what about thermostats and temp gauges?

have i done it wrong?!!

hope that vaguely helps the few of you that are less experienced than me!

dan
 Hey guys,

I am seeking some help on the cooling system design.

Firstly, my objective is to have a radiator which has a suitable geometry and physical configuration to
maintain a suitable engine temperature. The temp must be sustained for the events and for the time
between the events.

Now, if you know the temperatures,

1) temp coolant in to radiator
2) temp coolant out of radiator
3) air temp onto radiator
4) air temp from radiator,

I assume you can calculate R and P to get F of the correction factor chart.

As for these temperature valves, is everone just running a stock setup and measuring the temperatures
at various locations? Could anyone share some rough values to compare with?

Also, when calculating Cr, what is Cp,c and Cp,h and where do you get them from? Unfortunatly our uni
is quite poor and we have a limited selection of books. Wish I could get a copy of that Compact heat
exchangers book

 If you have the temperatures and core configuration you can calculate R,P, and F. Cp,c is
the specific heat of the cold fluid and Cp,h is the specific heat of the hot fluid.

However, I don't see the LMTD method as very practical. Usually you only have one hot side and
one cold side temperature when you are designing the exchanger. You can set an ideal outlet
temperature for the coolant but that outlet temperature should be based on the flow rate of coolant
and the amount of heat that the radiator needs to reject. Both of those are allready involved in the
effectiveness-NTU method though. If you can't get a hold of Compact Heat Exchangers, your heat
transfer text should be sufficient. Though, you will need to make some of the connections yourself
because they don't tend to connect the exchanger analysis with the basic diffusion and convection
heat transfer correlations.
 Josh Gillett
Oregon State FSAE '04-'06
 Engine Dude,

you should definetly setup your own tests as soon as you can...but in the mean time I'll post some
rough values, and maybe they will be far enough of as to anger those who have done more thourough

testing and then they will in turn post some better data

coolant temp in: ~210

coolant temp out ~150-160

air temp in ~70-75

air temp out ~190

This was taken with thermocouples on our current setup.

The coolant temp in comes from the engine sensor, the out was taken from the OUTSIDE of an
aluminum coolant line so grab a big 'ol grain 'o salt for that one (measured temp was 150, when the
inlet pipe said 197 and our temp gauge was floating around 200-210)...

The air temps were taken with thermocouples as well, placed in a couple locations about an inch back
from the core.

The Fan was a 1000cfm by manufactures specs but I don't have actual flow numbers.

In any case, that is all VERY rough data but maybe it will work as a starting point or at least a reality
check...

-Travis Garrison
 Engine Dude,

Sorry for the late reply, if you haven't found the answer I hope this will give you some more direction.

The heat capacity ratio, m*Cp, of the warm fluid, water, will always be higher than the heat capacity
ratio of the cold fluid, air, for a radiator.

For correction factors, Incropera and DeWitt don't have any correction factors involved with the
effectiveness-NTU method only with the LMTD method. Also, you use R and P to find F which is
multiplied times the LMTD of a counter flow exchanger to get the LMTD of the cross flow exchanger.

Cp,c is simply the specific heat of the cold fluid, i.e. air, you should be able to look it up or better would
be to find a table or equation for its temperature dependence then pick the value at the LMT and use
that for your calculations. This is obviously based on assumptions because you won't have the outlet
temperature.

The mass flows will come from the water pump flow rate and either the fan flow rate or a flow
determined by the car velocity and duct geometry, I always use the fan flow rate as it is likely to be a
worse case scenario.
 Uo can be preliminarily determined from the cooling system geometry and fluid properties. However
some of the fluid properties that are relevant are highly temperature dependent and will affect Uo. That
combined with Ao and Cmin, smaller heat capacity rate, should be enough to calculate NTU. Then
effectiveness can be calculated and you can see if the radiator rejects enough heat and see what the
output temps would be then iterate if your assumptions weren't close. That is pretty much the method
outlined in Compact Heat Exchangers and the method I use to evaluate radiator geometries to see if
they are sufficient to reject the necessary amount of heat.

Alternatively, if you know how much heat you need to reject and what the maximum possible heat
rejection is, q,max=Cmin(Th,i-Tc,i), Then you can calculate the effectiveness and use this to get the
NTU which combined with Cmin and an assumed value for U will give a value for A which if you take the
tube and fin geometry available can give you a radiator core size. Then you go through the first method
to make sure that it will reject enough heat. It probably will have a different U than was assumed and
iterate with the new value of U until it converges. This is the method I use to design a radiator core
geometry.
 hanks guys, I think i'm starting to get my head around it now.

On another note, I remember earlier in this thread some people asking for the flow rates of mechanical
pumps. I found a paper which gives the flow rates of a mechanical pump on a "common 600cc
motorbike engine". It doesn't specifically state the type, but a good indication can be gained.

I'd post the paper but I've only got it in hard copy.

Basically:
At 2500rpm, flowrate = 9.5 L/min
6000rpm, flowrate = 30 L/min
10,000rpm, flowrate = 59 L/min

So if you plot those points and put a straight line through it, you get an indication of the flowrates at
different engine revs for a "common 600cc engine."

Scott Sinclair
 Scott Sinclair
UWA Motorsport 2003-2005
 would that be high airside flowrates with low air core speed, since turbulent flow is what we want.

what if the core reduced to become thinner with larger frontal area (significant difference in water side
length); eg. 350*330*40 becomes 270*320*20 (350 to 270 - tubes length)??

Is there any rule of thumb for airside flow (core width) must be less than waterside flow(core height)
especially for those using single fan though it is dual phase??
 I've seen the posted message pretty much says : cooling fan area must be 75% of the radiator
...how does it deal with the airflow produced by the fan? not too offend but it must reconsider other
factors, doesn't it? I'll try to change by 1" below the supposedly '75%area' fans with higher flowrate for
sure, so what do you think guys?

I have no practical experience background before in engine cooling, just refer to everybody's favourite
book Kays and London,the way it should be done is:
 know the surface selection charcateristics+problem specs.+op.conditions,etc
1.then determine fluids output temp.
2.get C, effectiveness then Ntu
3. get thermophysical properties
such as stanton number, core mass velocity!,Re. numbers for both fluids
then obtain h values, U value, and further will obtain specific length of radiator height, wide and
thickness.
Any comments guys? Oya on the other hand I tried to combine gas-air to intercooler design concepts to
generate result, however still nil.

therefore, could someone help me with your way to calculate the area? My input basic input are:
thi=110 C
tai=40 C
mw=0.15 kg/s
ma=0.45 kg/s
inlet pressure 110 kPa,
pressure drop: water: 20kPa
air: 0.32kPa (both those values are gross estimate?)
the rest input is on your own in doing that and what source available with you.

I assumed you all guys knows how important pressure drop in prior calculations since I've never read
the many postings about it?so then if you guys know the most approximate estimate values for both
pressure drop, I would appreciate it very much. the output shows giant dimensions 12"x14"x1.5"

Any new fresh ideas are needed to continue the last breath!!! Pls someone can calculate the input of
mine and tell me what's wrong??

Sorry for the long story, hope to hear any comments from you all guys!! Thanks in advace
 But you are missing the whole design challenge. The fan is a backup system, period. Trust me, you
do not want your engine to fail because your cooling system crappped out. If it's electronic, it can fail
any time. By all means, definitely design with the fan how you want, but a few examples of the benefits
to my way are:
- Less current draw, so if your driver spins out, that much more juice is available to restart the car.
- The incoming air through the duct can be redirected to the radiator and parts of the engine or
electronics.
- As long as the duct is somewhat air tight, you can do much better calculations on efficiency because
you know the air stream flowing through the radiator is "laminar like" in that it is a uniform flow.
- When the fan is on, it doesn't have to work as hard to pull the same amount of air.
- And as stated before, your designing for a little redundancy so that if your fan fails during enduro it
isn't going to be what brings your team to it's knees!
The cooling design is all about sizing and testing testing testing. If you notice, I haven't really touched
on core geometry. Even though it makes a difference what size your core is, you can make any core
dissipate the heat you want given high enough water and air flow rates. When you want efficiency
though (less fan and water pump work, hence less power and current draw) every aspect of the system
should utilize what is already available. Do some flow rate calculations with air at a velocity of 35 mph
and compare it to what your fan pulls through the same area. You might be surprised. Then, depending
on your radiator orientation in the frame, compare the frontal projected area parallel to the centerline of
the frame. These are a few of the things you should consider in the cooling design. Make everything as
efficient as you can!
 I agree that designing to have your fan run all of the time is a badly designed cooling system. You
need a fan for times when the car is :
1) not moving but the engine is running
2) moving, but at very low speeds (hence no airflow through the radiator)
 3) under high engine loads where temperatures soar in the cooling system/engine
The idea is to utilize an available resource, the moving air around the car. Make a duct to your radiator
that will cram "clean" air to your radiator when driving. If you do it right, the fan will hardly need to
come on while driving. If you can't make a tricky duct, then position that radiator perpendicular to the
air flow. Ideally, you should think of your fan as a backup system. That way you save current draw, and
have one less thing to worry about if your fan happens to fail during endurance.
 Radiators: Copper or Aluminium?
Submitted by John Faubion

Reproduced courtesy of the KartWeb.com

As Mr. Denman knows I'm one of the very few kart racers that run a copper radiator. Anyone that has seen my kart
probably thinks I must not know anything since I run such a small radiator. However they also do not know that I
have a hard time getting the water temp over the 100-degree mark! I use a copper heater core for a radiator. This
system is a single pass core with the water entering and exiting from opposite ends. I run a Honda CR-125 with
more compression than the law should allow. I made 36 hp with this engine after running it for a full season with the
same piston and ring! Yes, you read that correctly, I ran an entire season on one piston and ring and still pulled 36 hp
from it. However to get back to the subject at hand, one of the keys to this success is the copper radiator. Why?

Lets face it the goal of any radiator is to transfer excess heat from the engine right? The amount of heat a radiator
can remove is related to three things, the efficiency, the surface area, and the temperature delta of the mediums. Lets
consider the efficiency of the radiator first.

Copper will transfer 384 watts/meter-degree centigrade (w/m-°C) while aluminum only transfers 155 w/m-°C.
Therefore copper is nearly two and half times more efficient at transferring heat than aluminum. In fact only silver is
a better conductor of heat. But considering the weight and cost, a silver radiator is probably not a good idea. But
isn’t copper is heavier than aluminum?

Granted the density of copper is 3.3 times that of aluminum so your might think that the copper radiator would
weight 3.3 times as much but it doesn’t. Copper is 2.8 times stronger than aluminum as well so the copper doesn’t
have to be as thick. So a copper radiator will only be slightly heavier than the same size aluminum radiator.
However since copper is 2.5 times more efficient than aluminum its surface area can be 2.5 times smaller to transfer
the same amount of heat! So a correctly sized copper radiator could actually be lighter than the aluminum radiator it
replaces.

Since the copper radiator is smaller we can install it perpendicular to the airflow to minimize the airflow restriction.
The larger aluminum radiator usually has to be mounted at an angle. This causes us to force the air to change
direction to pass through it. Aerodynamically this is very bad because it also causes air turbulence behind the
radiator. Ideally we duct the air into and out of the radiator to better control the air turbulence. I currently run
ducting into the radiator but not out of it… yet! We have covered the efficiency and the surface area now lets get to
an area most kart racers have never considered, the temperature delta!

If a radiator has an efficiency of 75% and we pass water at 140 degrees through it what should we expect the water
temp to be at the outlet if the air temp is 80 degrees? If you said 95 degrees then you don’t need to be reading this
anyway! For everyone else, the temperature drop across the radiator is the difference or delta between the water
temp (140) and the air temp (80) times the efficiency (75%) or (140-80)*.75=45 degrees. This is the temperature
drop across the radiator and since we started with 140-degree water our outlet temp is 95 degrees. If we change the
temperature delta we can take more heat from the system. As an example, lets say the ambient temperature is 60
degrees while all other factors stay the same. We will now drop the temp by (140-60)*.75=60 degrees with a
resulting outlet temp of 80 degrees. But we usually don’t have control of the ambient temperature do we?

So what typically happens if we are not removing enough heat from the engine? The water temp rises and our delta
changes. Let’s look at another example. Lets say the inlet temp rises to 160 with our original conditions. We are now
dropping the temp by 160-80*.75=60 degrees so our outlet temp is now 100 degrees. Our inlet temp increased by 20
degrees but our outlet temp only increased by 5 degrees. This should help explain why during a race the water
temperature sometimes goes higher that we saw during practice and then levels off. As long as we do not exceed the
pressure limit of the radiator cap the system will eventually stabilize.

But there are some problems with using a copper radiator. The worst of these problems is corrosion. By running a
copper radiator with an aluminum cylinder we create a battery effect. This galvanic action will corrode the
aluminum faster than the copper. You may be thinking that you can prevent this from happening by using de-ionized
water but you can’t. You see once it begins the aluminum will be releasing ions into the water, which will no longer
be de-ionized. It may help to slow it a bit initially but the galvanic action will occur.

This same action occurs in cars with iron blocks and copper radiators. Some manufacturers placed a sacrificial
anode in the system to protect the radiator and engine blocks. They usually made this anode from zinc. So why not
add a chunk of zinc to the system to protect the cylinder? Well zinc is actually nobler than aluminum and would
therefore cause the aluminum to corrode faster. While there are a few metals that are less noble than aluminum, most
of them (like sodium, potassium, and lithium) react quite violently with water. The only one that could possibly be
used would be magnesium. However when hot water is passed over magnesium it releases hydrogen gas. So using
magnesium is probably not a good idea for our use.

So what can be done? The only way to completely eliminate this effect is to use all aluminum components through
out the system. This would include the sensors as well. Most of us are going to have to deal with it to an extent
anyway so the best we can do is to reduce the action as much as possible. We can do this by using some kind of anti-
oxidant in the system. The best that is allowed for most of us to run is Red Line's Water Wetter. Water Wetter has
been proven to greatly reduce this effect in cooling systems with only a 5% mixture. Another measure that can help
is to drain the system between races so that the galvanic action does not have an electrical path between the
dissimilar metals. You can also use a Calcium, Lime and Rust (CLR) remover periodically to eliminate any
corrosion that has occurred. Just be sure to flush the system thoroughly after the CLR. This is due to the mild acids
in the CLR.

Another problem is finding the correct heater core to use as a radiator. Ideally what we want is a large single pass
heater core with the inlet and outlets on opposite ends. In fact opposite corners would be even better. This would
allow us to mount the radiator for a cross flow and to take the water off the bottom to the water pump inlet. Of
course mounting the radiator is another problem since a heater core usually has no mounting provisions since they
are usually captured inside a heater box. I am currently working on a design for a ducting system that will
incorporate the mount, ducting, and protection screens into a single unit. I know that John has been working on a
way of mounting a heater core in the side pod of a kart. His method should provide for quite a bit of protection to the
radiator while eliminating some frontal area of the kart.

This article should give you some food for thought during the off-season.

John Faubion
Below are some references used in writing this article.

http://automotive.copper.org/no-flux.html#misconceptions

http://www.redlineoil.com/redlineoil/wwti.htm

http://www.chem.vt.edu/RVGS/ACT/notes/activity_series.html