Quote:
Originally Posted by woode
Um, I have researched it.. and I even posted a 10 minute long video that proves my point. Not sure if you are serious?
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It's a good video and all, but there are many holes in his logic.
#1 He never mentioned anything about their 40deg difference when stationary.
#2 I trust people who have actual numbers from results, not just a whiteboard and a text book. I agree, thermodynamics may say it doesn't work, but their results show something different. Which means that there's something we're missing here. Only thing I can think is that with a flat paint you are actually increasing the surface area. It might just be possible that the negative effects of it being black and insulating are less than the increased effects of the greater surface area. A good test would be to try flat silver, or a light high-emissivity paint. I also remember the term 'latent heat', meaning how quickly a material changes temperature. It very well could be the latent heat of a rough, black surface affects the dynamics of it in different situations. I'm not a thermal engineer, so I'm just throwing ideas out there.
#3 He didn't even really prove anything by his equation, other than the fact that there was a 3% difference and went on a tangent on that. He made such a big deal about 3% but then talked nothing about the massive 50% difference the black made when stationary.
#4 He mentioned at the end about heat from other components like the engine and such, but wouldn't that be heat radiation and not convection? It almost seams like it's convection when moving and radiation when stationary. Side note: why do they call them radiators, then? (may be because street cars need cooling when stationary [radiation] and race cars need cooling bc they're really never stopped)
He does make some good points, buuuuut they covered a lot of those in the original video (ie. direct sunlight on the black). And I'm not trying to say who's right and who's wrong. I'm genuinely curious about the topic. More research is definitely going to be needed because, again, where I said real experiments are better that whiteboard equations, real track data is more important than bench testing.
Sorry, don't mean to keep it off topic but I think it does kinda pertain to this situation, especially it being in the FI section and not cosmetic mods. Plus, I just read in the development story of our cars how they constantly had to make sure the cosmetics were in harmony with functionality of the car. Let's keep that going!