I have given Simon Thomas plenty of time now to admit that he blundered, and retract the above insult towards me, but alas.
To avoid that some visitors might get confused by all his nonsense, I will point out his mistakes below.
In my first post here on 5 April I simple ignored his previous posts, which were nonsense, and explained to the topic starter what the basis for the factor 0.422 is. That should have been the end of it, but then, for no good reason whatsoever, Simon starts criticizing and insulting me while posting even worse nonsense.
At the end of this post it will be clear to everyone that Simon is the one with "delusions of understanding" that are "thoroughly entertaining".
He is clearly clueless on this subject and moderators should ban him from this topic to prevent that he continues sabotaging it and spoil it for others.
Best to take all his posts in all topics in the past, and in the future, with a lot of salt, especially if they contain numbers or units of measurement (UOM).
First an introduction and refresher, which most visitors of this topic probably don't need, but just to make sure that we are all on the same page:
There are some 900 (nine hundred) possible UOM's for the Universal gas constant Ru, with some 900 different numerical values. All kinds of strange combinations are possible. I use here Ru instead of R because Hooker already used R for the compression ratio of the supercharger.
There are many examples given here:
Universal Gas Constant "R" Values in many units
There are also some 900 possible UOM's for the Specific gas constant (called G by Hooker et al), however with billions of possible numerical values as there are billions of possible gas mixture compositions each with their own molar mass M (aka molecular weight) because G = Ru/M .
However one can't simply select the numerical value that one likes, and treat the associated UOM as mere decoration.
In fact it is the other way around: out of the 900 possibilities one has to select the one with the UOM that is consistent with those of all the other variables in the equation, and the numerical value of that gas constant is then a given, not a choice.
To understand that the UOM's of all variables in an equation have to match (be consistent) seems to be especially a problem for some (not all) of those who grew up with that inconsistent mess of medieval British Imperial units, and express their own weight in "stone".
Moreover anyone who does not understand UOM's cannot understand what a certain formula actually states.
Even Hooker/Reed/Yarker in their green booklet "The Performance of a Supercharged Aero Engine" do not seem to understand what the G they use actually is. On the nomenclature page in their booklet they state that G is the "Gas constant", without indicating that it is "Specific" and without indicating any UOM. They seem to think it is just a general constant with only a numerical value and no UOM, not realizing that it is actually not a constant but a physical property that depends on the molar mass of the gas.
The only correct value for Universal gas constant Ru that is consistent with all the other UOM's in the equations in the green booklet is:
1114 L."Hg/(°K.lbmole) , not any of the 900 or so alternatives.
To obtain the 77 (actually 76.8) in equation (4) requires G to be 38.4 L."Hg/(°K.lb) which means that the 77 , and consequently also the 0.422 in equation (5), are based on a value of M = Ru / G = 1114 L."Hg/(°K.lbmole) / 38.4 L."Hg/(°K.lb) =
29.0 lb/lbmole, which is the molar mass of
dry air, not that of a realistic air/fuel mixture, which would always result in a molar mass M that is higher than 29 lb/lbmole.
Surely others must have pointed that out to Hooker already during his life. So later he tried to save face in Appendix IV of his autobiography by claiming that the 0.422 equation is for an air/fuel mixture of 93 % air and 7 % petrol by weight. However in the green booklet there is no mention of any AFR in the derivation of equation (5). That is clearly based on the molar mass and specific gas constant G for pure air to obtain the 77 and 0.422 in his equations (4) and (5), as proven above.
For his claimed AFR of 93/7 = 13.3 the G would be 36.5 instead of 38.4 , the 77 would be 73 and the 0.422 factor would be 0.444 instead, as I already posted here in early April.
Note that equation (5) , the one with the 0.422 factor, has Tc in the denominator, which however cannot be measured. So they came up with equation (7) which supposedly gives Tc as a function of Tci. Actually it is no more than a curve fit of Figure (11) to match desired results with the inaccurate equation (5). Tc is mostly a fudge factor, although they try to give it a plausible scientific explanation but that would only have a small effect on Tc. If they had used 0.444 instead of 0.422 in equation (5) then the curve fit coefficients in equation (7) would simply have gotten different values to again match the same desired results.
Hooker should have combined equations (5) and (7) into one new equation with Tci (which can be measured or calculated) instead of Tc in the denominator, instead of using two separate inaccurate equations, but apparently he did not realise that.
A new equation combining (4) and (7) would still not be perfect though, because equation (6), which is used for Figure (11), is not accurate either.
Also important to note is that the green booklet is thin on thermodynamics, which does not seem to have been their expertise either.
However this, and many other inaccuracies, should not stop anybody from buying and studying their green booklet. It gives a
rough indication of the impact of the many variables involved. Far from perfect but usable.
--------------------------------------------------------
Simon's first post with nonsense, circled in red:
No, that 0.422 is not the clearance volume. Not even the numerical value would be right, but more importantly: the UOM of 0.422 is
°K.lb/"Hg , not Liter, or any other unit of volume.
--------------------------------------------------------
His second post with nonsense:
No, although m2/s2.K is one of the 900 possible UOM's for a specific gas constant, it is one of the 899 wrong ones.
They are NOT the dimensions required for 77 as neither
m nor
s are units in the rest of the equation.
Obviously the units of 77 must match all the units of all the other variables in the equation.
Look what units he came up with for Wc : m2/(s2.°K) . lb/min . Utter nonsense, the units for Wc should simply be: lb/min.
UOM's are a complete mystery to him, so he thinks that Matlab can save him, unaware of the Sh!t-In-Sh!t-Out principle.
--------------------------------------------------------
His third post with nonsense:
One of the 900 possible UOM's for Ru is
2782 ft.lb per
lbmole.°K, but not 2776 and not ft.lb per °K.
That would however again be merely one of the 899 wrong ones for Hooker's equations.
Molar mass (aka molecular weight) has a UOM of lb/
lbmole (or kg/kmol or g/mol), not just lb.
His lack of understanding of UOM's, and consequently sloppiness with their use, also leads to a completely wrong calculation for the molar mass of the air/fuel mixtures that he mentions.
A mixture with an AFR of 93/7 by weight has a molar mass of
30.5 lb/lbmole, not 34.2 or 36.15 or even higher. Even something as simple as that he can't do correctly.
I can guess what mistake was made because it is a classical blunder made by people that don't understand UOM's: they don't realise what it means that molar mass has lb
mole in the
denominator and simply blend on mass (weight) fractions instead of using
mole fractions.
The simplest way to calculate it is: 100 lb of an air/fuel mixture of 93 % air and 7 % petrol by weight (AFR = 13.3) contains 93/29.0 = 3.21 lbmole air,
plus 7/100 = 0.07 lbmole fuel. So mixture molar mass = 100 / (3.21 + 0.07) =
30.5 lb/lbmole.
Or alternatively: mole fraction of air is 3.21 / (3.21 + 0.07) = 0.9787 and mole fraction of fuel is 0.07 / (3.21 + 0.07) = 0.0213
So mixture molar mass = 0.9787 * 29.0 + 0.0213 * 100 =
30.5 lb/lbmole.
Highschool stuff really, but apparently too complicated for certain people.
The Specific gas constant G for this air/fuel mixture would then be:
( 2782 ft.lb per lbmole.°K ) / ( 30.5 lb/lbmole ) = 91.2 ft.lb per lb.°K (which is equivalent to 36.5 L."Hg per °K.lb)
not the 76.791 ft.lb per lb.°K that he fabricated (which would be equivalent to 30.7 L."Hg per °K.lb).
But even if he had used the correct value for M his calculated G would still be wrong because the UOM that he used for G is wrong and therefore its associated numerical value is automatically wrong too.
His statements that I was "wrong" and even made a "massive error" is also wrong. He is the one making "massive errors" all the time.
He does not understand and does not want to hear that G must be expressed in
L."Hg/(°K.lb)
I will explain that in more detail below for those of you that are interested in more details.
He does not understand and does not want to hear that the 77 is not G but
2G although I already mentioned that several times here in the past months.
That factor 2 is also a complete mystery to him. To end that discussion I will explain that also in more detail below for those of you that are interested in more details.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXPLANATION OF THE FACTOR 2
Hooker's equation (4) in the green booklet (the one with the 77) is derived from his preceding equation (3) as follows:
Hooker's equation (3) gives the weight of charge inhaled per cylinder per cycle:
Merlin has 12 cylinders, so the relation between s (clearance volume per cylinder) and S (swept volume of engine) is:
Inserting that gives that weight of charge inhaled per cylinder per cycle is:
Merlin is a four stroke engine, so it takes
2 crankshaft rotations to complete 1 cycle. Number of cycles per minute is therefore: N /
2
For a Merlin engine with 12 cylinders, running at N rpm, the total engine Rate of mixture consumption (charge consumption) is therefore:
This can be simplified to arrive at Hooker's equation (4):
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UOM ANALYSIS
A UOM analysis (dimensional analysis) can be used to determine what the UOM of G in equation (4) shall be.
Below is equation (4) with all UOM's of all variables indicated. x is dimensionless and has no UOM. In every equation the combination of UOM's on the right side of the equal sign must be the same as on the left side.
In this case both sides have to show only lb/min, which is the UOM of Wc, and any other UOM's must cancel each other out.
The blue UOM's are the ones that shall remain, the red UOM's are the ones that must cancel each other out:
Below only the UOM's are shown without the variable names. G is replaced by
???? because that is the UOM which we want to determine here:
It is evident now that the UOM of G must have
Liter and
"Hg in the nominator, so that they both end up in the denominator of the equation, and
°K and
lb must be in the denominator of G, so that they both end up in de nominator of the equation.
As a result the red units in de nominator cancel out the red units in the denominator and only
lb/min remains on both sides:
This proves that the UOM of G to be used in this equation is:
L."Hg/(°K.lb)
This technique can be applied to any equation in any field of science and engineering.