Hello everyone, today we will discuss the role and application of the intercooler, what is the intercooler, let's understand it!
The concept of intercooler should not be very well understood by many people, in fact, this is a device with turbocharging. The intercooler can only be seen when the supercharger is installed in the car, because the intercooler is actually a turbocharging accessory, its role is to reduce the temperature of the high temperature air after pressurizing, so as to reduce the heat load of the engine, improve the intake volume, so as to increase the power of the engine. For the supercharged engine, the intercooler is an important component of the supercharged system. Whether it is a mechanically supercharged engine or a turbocharged engine, it is necessary to install the intercooler between the supercharger and the intake manifold.
The intercooler is generally made of aluminum alloy material. According to the different cooling medium, the common intercooler can be divided into air-cooled and water-cooled 2 kinds.
(1) Air cooling type: use outside air to cool the air through the intercooler. The advantage is that the whole cooling system has few components, and the structure is relatively simple compared with the water-cooled intercooler. The disadvantage is that the cooling efficiency is lower than the water-cooled intercooler, generally requires a longer connection pipe, air through the resistance is larger. Air-cooled intercooler has been widely used because of its simple structure and low manufacturing cost. Most turbocharged engines are air-cooled intercooler, such as Huatai Traka TCI off-road vehicle and FAW -- Volkswagen Bora 1.8T car engine are equipped with air-cooled intercooler.
(2) Water cooling type: using circulating cooling water to cool the air through the intercooler. The advantage is that the cooling efficiency is high, and the installation position is flexible, without the need to use a long connection pipe, so that the whole inlet pipe is more smooth. The disadvantage is that it needs a relatively independent circulating water system with the engine cooling system, so the Zhenge system has many components, high manufacturing costs, and complex structure. Water-cooled intercooler is less used, generally used in the engine or rear vehicles, as well as large displacement of the engine, such as Mercedes-Benz S400CDI car and Audi A8TDI car equipped with the engine are using water-cooled intercooler.
The intercooler is a component of the engine supercharger used to cool the air. Its position is relatively diverse, which is generally divided into three types:
1. Front: this kind of equipment is mostly designed for highly charged engine. Its purpose is to use stronger air flow to cool the compressed air in the intercooler when driving at high speed, so as to improve the oxygen content of the compressed air.
2. Side-mounted: intercoolers are mostly designed for engines with low supercharged values, because the compressed air temperature after turbocharging with low supercharged values is high, and the turbo with low supercharged values is low, so there is no need for large intercoolers to cool it, so it can more effectively reduce the space occupied by it in the engine room.
3. Overhead: this is the usual installation position of rally cars. The purpose is to avoid more trouble when the car is running at high speed in the wild area where the intercooler is punctured by flying branches and so on.
The role of the intercooler is to reduce the intake temperature of the engine, so why do you need to reduce the intake temperature?
1. The temperature of the exhaust gas discharged by the engine is very high, and the heat conduction through the supercharger will increase the temperature of the intake air. In addition, the density of air will increase in the process of compression, which will also lead to the increase of air temperature discharged by the supercharger. With the increase of air pressure, the oxidation density will decrease, thus affecting the effective inflation efficiency of the engine. If you want to further improve the inflation efficiency, it is necessary to reduce the intake temperature. Every 10℃ drop in the temperature of the pressurized air, the engine power can be increased by 3%-5%
2. If the uncooled pressurized air enters the combustion chamber, it will not only affect the inflating efficiency of the engine, but also easily lead to too high combustion temperature of the engine, resulting in knock and other faults, and will increase the NOx content in the exhaust gas of the engine, resulting in air pollution.
3. Reduce engine fuel consumption.
4, improve the adaptability to altitude. In high altitude areas, the use of intermediate cooling can use a higher pressure ratio of the compressor, which makes the engine get more power, improve the adaptability of the car.
5, improve the supercharger matching and adaptability
Let's talk about the working principle of the intercooler!
Using a well-designed intercooler can add 5 to 10 percent more power.
But there are also some cars using overhead intercooler, through the opening on the engine cover to obtain cooling air, so before the car starts, the intercooler will only be subject to some hot air blowing from the engine compartment, although the heat dissipation efficiency is affected, but because the intake temperature will increase in this case, so the engine fuel consumption will drop a lot. This also indirectly reduces the efficiency of the engine, but for a powerful supercharged car, too much power will lead to a shaky start, but in this case will be alleviated. Subaru's Impreza car series is a typical example of overhead intercooler. In addition, the biggest advantage of the overhead intercooler layout is that it can effectively shorten the travel of compressed gas to the engine.