Math Question

[John Napoli]

Yes, and the key phrase is 'to an extent'.  There is still a lot of waste
heat out the tail pipe and in the radiator and etc.  A turbo is a step in
the right direction but there are still a lot of BTUs being 'wasted'.

John

On Wed, 18 Sep 1996, Mark Pitts wrote:

> Surly that is effectively what a turbo does to an extent, esp. in diesels ??? (I might have it wrong here)
> 
> Mark
> 
> ----------
> From:  John Napoli[SMTP:jgn at li.net]
> Sent:  Tuesday, September 17, 1996 11:15 PM
> To:  diy_efi at coulomb.eng.ohio-state.edu
> Subject:  Re: Math Question
> 
> This issue of thermodynamic efficiency is one of my hot points (ouch).
> 
> Fossil fuel plants use every trick in the book to recapture all the
> 'waste' BTUs that they can.  If you neglect the power used to run their
> pollution devices (a parasitic loss), their overall efficiency is pretty
> good - I recall numbers in the mid-40s.
> 
> Our gasoline engines in our cars do nothing to utilize the energy in the
> waste heat.  Arre they 10%? 20% efficient overall?  I doubt 20% but lets
> go with that number.
> 
> If we were able to utilize a third of the waste heat, wouldn't that make a
> big difference?  Instead of raising CAFE with smaller and lighter cars, we
> would raise it by being more efficient.  I doubt that all the EFI software
> in the world will make much more MPG than we see right now.  I would like
> to see something intelligent about using the waste heat.
> 
> John
> 
> 
> 
> 
>