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Old 05-21-2013, 02:01 PM   #23 (permalink)
jamesqf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mechman600 View Post
Compound turbos do it mechanically through a gear set. The DD16 in my link above does, as did all the WWII airplane engines.
Sure, it CAN be done that way, at the cost of adding weight, complexity, and wear/failure points. That might not matter much for combat aircraft - after all, the average service life of a B-17 in combat was something like 4 months.

The amusing part is the research done after the war to discover the most efficient size of turbocharger for a given piston engine. Turned out the optimum was to reduce the size of the engine to zero.
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