Quote:
Originally Posted by Daox
2) The turbine may marginally reduce the energy required to cut through the air (overspill around the turbine like the grill block). At the same time, it will create drag by taking the air that passes through it and generate electricity at a pretty horrible efficiency. I think most windmills are ~30%. I doubt this is any better. Keep in mind that you've already spent energy to get your vehicle up to speed with an inefficient ICE (~30% efficient), so you have those losses on top of it. Air that has passed through the turbine will have very little pressure left and therefore is of little use for cooling since you need a pressure differential across the radiator to get flow.
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Well not all the air will flow through the turbine some will go around the sides unless you duct every thing through it. Also a turbine isn't going to extract all the energy from the air. The total pressure will be distributed across the turbine and the radiator.
It will be like two resistors in series in an electrical circuit. The pressure across each one will be enough to get the same volume of air through each one just like the voltage will split across the two resistors and each voltage will be sufficient to get the same amount of current through each of them. The two pressures differences added together will equal the total pressure available just like the sum of the voltage drops will equal the total voltage.
make sense?
You may not get a lot back but you will get something back maybe 3 amps or so. That would be about 1/10th of a HP savings driving the alternator. Plus you would reduce net drag on the car.