Pre-turbocharger methanol injection
I am trying to understand what the limits are of pre-compressor methanol injection on turbocharged cars.
From my understanding, erosion occurs when you have the wrong combination of compressor speed and droplet size.
I have a turbocharger and I calculated the tip speed of the compressor to be at about 1158 ft/s at maximum boost.
My
question is if the inlet tubing to the compressor is 3 feet long and I
am flowing 100 ml/min of pure methanol (tiny amounts) will I see erosion
if my ambient inlet temps are 80 degrees F?
I did a quick hand
calc and the speed the air is moving through the inlet tube is about 160
ft/s so it will take about 20 ms for the air to reach the compressor.
I
dont know how to compute the content of liquid left in this mixture,
the methanol is injected via a super atomizing nozzle. So inlet droplet
size can be assumed some value. I just dont know droplet size at the end
of the tube feeding the compressor.
Why would you want to inject at pre-compressor stage? The higher the
temperature difference, the more efficient cooling will be. I can see a
case where you'd argue to inject before any intercooler, to use that
gain, but not before the compressor.
In general, methanol is
injected either directly into the cylinders or into the inlet ports of
the engine, when used as "regular" fuel. This does prevent most effects
of long term corrosion. When risking the chance of condensation of your
methanol onto the compressor wheel, intercooler and inlet tract, you
will probably expose your aluminium much more than when injecting
further towards the inlet valves.
I don't think that
experimenting with the size and concentration of the droplets will make a
fundamental difference. Maybe a practical, but you're still exposing
aluminium to (heated) methanol. It will corrode in the end. I don't know
if cavitation plays a part in this process, but purely chemical,
concentration and temperature are your main factors. If cavitation plays
a part, you'd want the stuff evaporated before it hits your compressor
wheel. If not, you'd want large droplets so only a small portion of the
alcohol is directly exposed to the aluminium and most will just fly past
and evaporate further down. Maybe the high impact speed at the tips of
your compressor wheel would cause cavitation in larger droplets?
Remember
that the evaporation of the methanol is what cools the mixture, once
it's gaseous, it's just another gas that you are heating. It makes sense
to evaporate it at the point where temperatures are highest. That would
be either just before the intercooler, or during the compression stroke
inside the cylinder.
Methanol has a high latent heat value, so it would provide a nice reduction in charge air temps.
The
droplet size would not likely be an issue, since the small amounts of
methanol you propose to use would readily vaporize before contacting the
compressor wheel. But methanol is also very corrosive to some
metals/materials/ball valve. So you would need to check for compatibility.
You
would also need to make sure that your turbo's compressor shaft seals
are capable of keeping the methanol out of your lube oil.