N1K2-J air intake

[Supercharged]

Hello,

just a short one....somebody knows the purpose of the 3rd air intake (marked with red arrow)?
blue should be carburettor
yellow is oil cooler

(Source: made by myself)

 

[naga]

Oil cooler sub-intake.

 

[Shinpachi]

N1K2-J seems to have two air-intakes for an oil cooler to adjust the flow rate.

 

[Supercharged]

N1K2-J seems to have two air-intakes for an oil cooler to adjust the flow rate.

Two different intakes for same cooler, extraordinary....
Thanks for your fast response

 

[72modeler]

Since that second oil cooler intake is below the oil cooler matrix itself, it might be there to create a venturi effect to enhance the extraction of the hot air from the oil cooler?
Mike

 

[AerialTorpedoDude69]

Since that second oil cooler intake is below the oil cooler matrix itself, it might be there to create a venturi effect to enhance the extraction of the hot air from the oil cooler?
Mike

That's fascinating, thank you for sharing. I think the lower oil-cooler is a Meredith Effect type cooler, although it's been mounted on the front rather than mid-frame. IIRC, the Meredith Effect can be combined with the Venturi effect. In the design that we're seeing from Shinpachi-sama, it's entirely possible that as air is heated as it passes through the primary duct and hits the oil pan and then mixed with a low-pressure system to increase air flow velocity and improve cooling as well as potentially some extra thrust.

That would be pretty amazing if it was positioned in the front, rather than the rear, in order to increase flow rate on the primary oil cooler. That would also explain the oil cooler positioning on the Ki-84 and A7M.

The N1K1-J production model also had a ram-air-style cooler but I'm not sure whether this was a fuel cooler or part of the oil cooling system. My guess is that it was used to pressurize and cool the fuel tanks.

It's interesting to note that the original design of the N1K1-J prototype did not have the ram-air tube and that this was an addition that was made to production aircraft. It may be that the Japanese engineers gradually moved toward a dual Venturi-Meredith effect design as they realized the advantages from combining these systems through incremental prototyping.