Radiator Configurations

[Silavite 1,218]

Time for some rambling.

One of the things which has caught my eye is how different radiator configurations arise for liquid cooled engines. It seems to me that there are four main configurations:

Belly

Spoiler

Chin

Spoiler

Wing

Spoiler

(Under-wing)

(In-Wing)

and Annular

Spoiler

 

With that said, some of the configurations make sense, while some... don't. Just eyeballing it, I would infer: 

In-wing seems like the best for absolute least drag. Under-wing seems to offer a compromise between drag and lift. Belly seems to be the best without sacrificing any lift. Chin seems awful due to the extremely turbulent air immediately behind the propeller arc, which means any semblance of a Meredith effect would be difficult to achieve. Likewise for annular, it seems like it offers the biggest disadvantage of a radial (high frontal area) with none of its benefits (durable, higher horsepower, simple).

I can't understand why a designer would choose to use an inline engine with an annular or chin radiator. The only reason I can surmise is that it would be easier to slap on an annular/chin radiator to an aircraft originally designed to use a radial engine. This explains why the Fw 190D and P-40 used annular and chin radiators, being developed from the radial engined Fw 190A and P-36, respectively. The rationale for the Typhoon and Tempest, however, seems to be an utter mystery.

That said, there was an experimental model of the Tempest (and a prototype Fw 190) with a ducted-fan type annular radiator, which seems like it would be more efficient due to the less turbulent air ahead of the propeller arc.

Spoiler

Rambling over. If nothing else, I hope that the pictures were cool.

[fufubear 6,705]

You forgot to mention that chin radiators me any plane look ugly.

[toddpacker86@psn 67]

Thanks for posting your thoughts on this and the great pictures too.

 

One of the great things about playing war thunder is the immersion and what you can learn from the interior of the aircraft. I've noticed that aircraft like the P40 have coolant temperature gauge and wonder if this is separate to the engine temperature or basically the same thing? In a modern car you only have one engine temperature gauge and I'm sure I read somewhere that this gauge basically reads the temperature of the coolant as it flows through the engine. 

[Josephs_Piano 7,044]

Tempest annular radiator page - 

 

 

Chin radiators had the advantage of shorter lines to the engine I guess, but ventral radiator was trialed for hte typhoon prototypes, but considered unsuitable for the 400mph speeds they were getting and compressablity effects - which were still a bit of a mystery - see http://www.aviation-history.com/hawker/typhoon.html

[builder396 252]

Annular and Chin radiators generally appear often as well in the german "Kraftei" concept of engine interchangability on bombers, such as the Do 217 (having variants with the BMW801 or DB600) or Ju 88 (using Jumos with annular radiatiors or BMW801 radials), since it makes the engine a complete unit without having any part in the cooling system within the airframe. 

[Bombastikus 14,039]

On 25.11.2016 at 5:42 AM, Silavite said:

I can't understand why a designer would choose to use an inline engine with an annular or chin radiator. The only reason I can surmise is that it would be easier to slap on an annular/chin radiator to an aircraft originally designed to use a radial engine. This explains why the Fw 190D and P-40 used annular and chin radiators, being developed from the radial engined Fw 190A and P-36, respectively. The rationale for the Typhoon and Tempest, however, seems to be an utter mystery.

 

Rambling over. If nothing else, I hope that the pictures were cool.

 

While that is certainly true for the FW190D......you should also keep in mind that all those planes, FW190, Typhoon, Tempest....were all - at least in part - designed as fighter bombers.

 

Having a belly-radiotor or having a wing mounted radiator makes it difficult to mount bombs either centerline or on the wings. For a fighter bomber you want to keep the centerline and underwing clear to mount weapons there.

 

So while I read that this was one of the thought processes with the FW190, I  haven't read anything regarding this concerning typhoons and tempests, but I would imagine the rationale is similar.