Cool Fuel In F1 ?

[cm712]

Hay guys why do the Formula one teams cool the fuel down before it goes into the cars ?

And i was reading that fuel pump is cooled by the fuel passing throught it so would it warm up the fuel ?

Wont this do the opposite to what the formula 1 teams try to do i assume that they cool the fuel down because it makes more power some how which you guys will hopefully

be able to help me with.

The fuel pump warms the fuel up so it makes all the cars less efficent if the fuel is warmer ?

I assume that it makes the the air intake temps lower as it is sprayed into the piston is that what cold fuel dose ?

Edited June 2, 2009 by cm712

[Skyrin3]

Id say so its more dense thus you can fit more into the tank. Kinda the same as they recommend u fill up in the morning.

[Walk510]

the rx7's when they raced in the 12 hour used to cool there fuel i think i remember something like 7 degC

ive only seen a couple of cars since that have a icebox for fuel last one was up in darwin i saw last year

[baron25]

Id say so its more dense thus you can fit more into the tank. Kinda the same as they recommend u fill up in the morning.

Bingo.

More Dense Fuel = More Fuel In tank

Although a lot of the benefit would be wiped out in the engine bay unless you could insulate the fuel lines from heat, keeping the fuel cool means you could fit more into the cylinders too.

More Fuel in Cylinders = Higher Compression = More power.

[scathing]

A few teams used to use fuel coolers in parc fermé overnight to stop fuel from evaporating out of the tank. This was when they weren't allowed to refuel between the end of qualifying and starting the race.

They'd cycle the fuel out through a chiller and pump it back in. I suppose when races are practically decided by fuel strategy, every last millilitre counts.

Otherwise, I'd opt for the density answer Skyrin3 said. Aside from being able to fit more in the tank, denser fuel means more fuel for a given volume. This means you can move more fuel over a certain length of time. In a competition settled in the thousandths of a second, refuelling a split second faster could also improve placings.

Colder fuel could theoretically increase power by cooling the charge air as it goes in, but I'm not sure if the fuel can really stay cold in the tank. I can't imagine its particularly cool anywhere in a F1 car, and with the refuelling neck behind the driver I can only assume the fuel tank is near the engine.

Edited June 2, 2009 by scathing

[StealthX]

A few teams used to use fuel coolers in parc fermé overnight to stop fuel from evaporating out of the tank. This was when they weren't allowed to refuel between the end of qualifying and starting the race.

They'd cycle the fuel out through a chiller and pump it back in. I suppose when races are practically decided by fuel strategy, every last millilitre counts.

Otherwise, I'd opt for the density answer Skyrin3 said. Aside from being able to fit more in the tank, denser fuel means more fuel for a given volume. This means you can move more fuel over a certain length of time. In a competition settled in the thousandths of a second, refuelling a split second faster could also improve placings.

Colder fuel could theoretically increase power by cooling the charge air as it goes in, but I'm not sure if the fuel can really stay cold in the tank. I can't imagine its particularly cool anywhere in a F1 car, and with the refuelling neck behind the driver I can only assume the fuel tank is near the engine.

by regulation in F1, the fuel tank must sit behind the driver, along with the oil tank (they are dry sump)

id love to see someone do some engineering along the lines of cold fuel vs. hot fuel and their effects on power.

i can imagine for turbo cars, colder fuels would decrease the chance of detonation... i.e. adding a 'tank cooler' would have similar effects to adding/having a bigger intercooler, thus allowing you to safely up the boost a little more.

[mad082]

the filling up with fuel in the morning thing is a bit of a myth. the tanks are underground so don't get affected by the heat of the day very much (or the cold overnight). in fact during the night they would be heated by the warmth of the ground in the same way that the houses in coober pedy are underground and don't require heating or cooling. also it takes a very large amount of energy to alter the temp of a large body of liquid that isn't getting direct sunlight. the other problem is that if you fill up on a cold morning your tank won't hold quite as much fuel (minutely smaller amount). this is because metal contracts (shrinks) when it is cold and expands when it is hot.

as for cooling the fuel in the lines, that would mean denser fuel.

[MBS206]

by regulation in F1, the fuel tank must sit behind the driver, along with the oil tank (they are dry sump)

id love to see someone do some engineering along the lines of cold fuel vs. hot fuel and their effects on power.

i can imagine for turbo cars, colder fuels would decrease the chance of detonation... i.e. adding a 'tank cooler' would have similar effects to adding/having a bigger intercooler, thus allowing you to safely up the boost a little more.

I don't see how you're going to get more power from colder fuel?

It means you could "theoretically" run smaller injectors, but if you cool the fuel, and inject for the same amount of time, you've just richened the engine up...

[scathing]

From a BBC news article about some fuel cooler scandal back in 2007:

Cooler fuel can give a car a performance advantage.

It is denser, so it can take slightly less time to refuel a car or marginally more fuel can be added in the same time.

Cooler fuel would also give a slight power advantage for about three laps before returning to the temperature out on the track.

However, the total advantage for each car over the race distance was almost certainly no more than a second.

Former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan agrees that cars do gain an unfair advantage if they use cooler fuel.

"If you put chilled or cool fuel into a car you get between 5 and 10 horsepower increase," he told 5live