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Old 05-18-2011, 01:33 PM   #17 (permalink)
mort
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I hope somebody can make something automotive out of this, but...
The p-51, for example, cruises at over 300 mph and uses about 1000 hp to do that. The heat coming out of the radiator is about 70 hp, and assuming the outlet nozzle for this Meredith Effect is not a de Laval (supersonic through the throat) I think the highest theoretical efficiency is about 10% So it seems that the radiator drag was under 7 hp to begin with.

Applied to a car, the lower speed, lower heat and styling constraints make it look very difficult. I'm guessing that at cruise a normal car sees about the same amount of drag due to the radiator as the amount of heat dumped through the radiator.

-mort
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