Audacity Racing wrote:
I gotta wrap my head around this for a bit more, I'm not sure I fully understand what you're after in my 3 or 4 minutes of reading here...
Basicly imagine if you plot your Pressure ratio vs Mass Air flow point on the compressor map and it's just left of the highest efficency point.
If you were to open up a throttle body (taking the place of a dump valve) it would allow flow to the engine as well as out of the throttle body.
Thus.... the mass airflow would go up.
Now of course your probably thinking.... when he opens up the variable dump valve (drive by wire throttle body ) you will loose all the pressure in the system.
This would be corrected by the wastegate.... which would shut and add energy to the compressor wheel to drive up the pressure and flow rate.
However.... since your not just venting the extra flow to the atmosphere.... your redirecting it back to the intake side (as all dump valves should be to create better efficency)
That redirection of energy back into the intake path reduces the amount of energy required to create more pressure and flow.
So the wastegate would partially close again.
It's a feed back loop.... kinda hard to explain.... hopefully you understand where I'm coming from.
By moving the compressor point into a more efficent area you end up decreasing the temperature of the air coming out of the compressor
As well.... by rerouting excess flow back into the intake the direct result is that the compressor is not adding as much energy... thus... the air temperature should also decrease to offset the fact that the feedback flow into the intake is a higher temperature than the intake air.
In theory a dual row intercooler would be best..... the air goes through the front portion of the intercooler... splits off between the engine and dump valve (throttle body) and then the throttle body flow is redirected through a second row (behind the first intercooler) and then back into the intake path.
My thought is that it might be a good thing to increase the resistance going back towards the intake path so that there is a better "dampened" response to the throttle body opening up (since the air will want to move towards the path of least resistance)
Imagine that the electric dump valve (throttle body) is the exact opposite twin of the engine throttle body...... when the engine is gulping air and making major power.... almost all the flow goes into the engine because the electric throttle body is nearly closed.
Then as the engine throttle body closes the electric throttle body opens (just like a regular dump valve) and the flow goes back into the intake
This way you can keep the turbo spooled while maintaining a very balanced and efficent flow from the compressor.
The dump valves are usually ON/OFF... the transition is fairly quick and I would bet that pressure waves are created throughout the intake path.
With a variable electric throttle body it should be a very smooth setup with next to zero pressure waves because it's not ON/OFF... it varies the flow to keep everything in a steady flow state.
Honestly........ I have to do some testing to see how well the system would work.
Another thought I had was to make the excess flow do work..... it might be possible to convert this "work" into a device which would cool the flow before it get's back into the intake stream.
Basicly.... you would be taking some of the free energy of the exhaust/turbine and using it to help cool the intake charge.
My thought is that the flow could go through a small turbine and compress a fluid ( such as refrigerant ) and then the refrigerant could used to cool the intake charge.
The end result is that the waste gate could allways stay shut...... so the turbine is extracting the maximum free energy from the exhaust.
That excess energy would be redirected into making the compressor side more efficent and also to decreasing charge temperature.
Who knows... it might even be possible to get a efficency above 100% at full boost (as the intake air would be significantly cooler than ambient air )
You could even use the excess turbine energy to help cool off other systems.... oil.... coolant.... the options are endless.
I don't really know how things would end up working out..... experimentation would be required to see how the system reacts.
Hopefully you get an idea of what I'm proposing..... I spent many hours thinking about it and drawing flow charts.... and I think it has some merit.