Quote:
Originally Posted by ChazInMT
Well James. It looks like to me you just said you need energy to run the turbocharger in the form of burning fuel. So, the turbine side of the turbocharger you admit needs power. I understand we burn fuel in our engines, pretty basic stuff. But when it leaves the engine on a normally aspirated engine, it just goes out the exhaust pipe fairly freely. Lets for grins say that it is at 1psi at the exhaust manifold. If there is a restriction in the exhaust system like say...A Turbocharger....then the pressure is going to rise in the exhaust manifold to say 3psi. This pressure and restriction WILL place a load on the engine, requiring more power from the engine in order to operate. That is where the power is coming from, our engines are big air pumps, and if you restrict the flow on the outlet, it needs more energy to overcome that.
|
Well, no. Remember your ideal gas law from physics? PV = kT, right? So the turbo extracts heat energy from the incoming exhaust gas, lowering its temperature and hence the pressure in the exhaust system.
Quote:
|
it is a misconception that turbochargers run for free, as if they don't require energy to operate. They do, you admitted yourself that you need to use "a stream of hot gas generated by burning some sort of fuel" which makes my point exactly, turbochargers need energy to run.
|
Of course they need energy to run. The "for free" comes from the fact that the energy they use - the heat of exhaust gas - is energy that would otherwise go right out the tailpipe.