Cooling

More than 50% of energy used in combustion goes into heat[citation needed]. Heat is also generated by the turbulence of the air in the intake and cylinder, as well as friction from the engine's internals. A system is needed to keep the engine within it's operational temperature range.

Theory

Cooling systems are designed to dissipate the unwanted thermal energy. Systems are often designed around heat exchangers (HEXs), allowing for efficient exchange of heat from a hot fluid to a cooler one. There are three main methods of heat transfer;

• Conduction: Heat transfer over a temperature differential without motion between the materials
• Convection: Heat transfer over a temperature differential with fluid motion between the materials
• Radiation: Heat transfer due to by energy emitted from the unstable nature of a hot material (shitty definition, but the best I have)
  • Heat transfer in the form of electromagnetic radiation emitted by bodies above absolute 0 (wikipedia says its a function of distributing entropy, not sure we're gonna get a simple, and easy answer here)

A heat exchanger (HEX) is normally designed to optimize the heat transfer between two fluids using conduction and convection. The most common HEX is an water to air cooler, meaning it transfers heat between the hot water and the cooler air. These HEXs have a few distinct characteristics, full metal construction, thin metal fins in the streamwise direction, water inlets on top and bottom, with air inlets on the front and back. The metal construction is due to a low conductive heat transfer coefficient within the metal in addition to a low specific heat. These factors allow the metal rapidly conduct heat from the hotter internal water channels to the cooler metal fin tips. The fin structure is to maximize convection heat transfer by increasing the surface area the air flows over. The convection heat transfer coefficient is also a function of the airspeed passing the fin, allowing for 'forced convection' where a fan and or vehicle speed is used to impart an inlet speed to the system.Behavior(function?) of radiators vary heavily based upon water channel sizes, fin spacing, and a plethora of other characteristics.

Radiator Types

cross flow / downflow radiator, radiator form factors, and why we all use them

System Design

Hosing

type and sizing

Routing

keep it short and straight

Data and Data collection

see Data Acquisition

Other applications

Brake cooling

• Convective
  
  • ducting
  • theyre spinning hot disks, they have natural convection
• Radiation

Oil cooling

why you would want to cool oil

• If it boils or denatures bad things happen - Novotny
• thanks, lol, just a placeholder, isnt meant to be a question, poor phrasing on my end - simon
• all good, I was confused :')

Driver cooling

lmao