ModROTOR™ by NALLEN...

[nallen00]

Guys, this project represents a significant investment of both time and money, and we take it very seriously - as do our partners. We're all experienced engineers with a great respect of the prior art on which this design is built. As I mentioned earlier, the design was originally targeted at very specific motorsport applications. Our models mimic the architecture and recorded flow mechanics of these applications. As I said, it's a valid concern. We're testing in April. Can't argue raw data

With that said, thank you for the feedback. Yes, there are unknowns, and I look forward to sharing the development/learning process with you. More as the prototypes are built!

[Hess RS]

Ya id love to see some real world testing. What is the center going to be made out of? I only read the materials for the friction surface.

[Hess RS]

Well just to get this out of my head. You stated that the airflow through the rotor is not centrifugally driven. Lets take a turbocharger turbine as a similar, and maybe easier example to look at. Basically I see your design as a turbine and housing, with no intake. You can spin up the turbine very fast, and it will kick off any residual air around the turbine, but there is no longer any air coming IN from anywhere. You have to stop, or almost stop, the turbine, allowing the pressure to normalize, then spin it back up again to move more air. You can spin a red hot piece of steel in a vacuum, and it will take forever to cool, since there is no (or little) air density to carry away the heat (Ive done this in college for thesis papers). I see it as basically with no airflow coming from the ID of the rotor, you are essentially running it in a vacuum. Same principal with your rotor I believe. And your ball and wedge basically states the same thing. Once the residual air is gone, and there is a low pressure present, and rotor speed remains somewhat constant, air is not going to force its way in the wrong direction to essentially re-fill the vanes. I don't doubt your expertise as engineers, and not to be rude at all, but you can throw as much money and time into something that you want, believing its going to work, and in the real world testing it doesn't. Ive been there more time than I can count. Post up some real world testing. Not just track testing, BRAKE DYNO comparison testing of heating and cooling cycles, and when it melts let me know. Or prove me wrong.

[nallen00]

You're suggesting an aerothermodynamic analog between a solid disc rotating in a vacuum and an automotive brake rotor?

OK.

First, brake rotors don't possess turbo inlet or outlet surrounding geometries. Yes, turbochargers have been extensively studied from a pumping performance and efficiency point of view, but this bears little relevance to the unique aerodynamic design objectives of brake rotors where the dominant requirements are for cooling performance and thermal management. The established turbocharger knowledge base has a role to play, but needs to be re-evaluated.

Our first multiphysics validations (1052 to date) did not measure heat transfer. We were more interested in the turbulent flow field at the rotor O.D. We studied this phenomena religiously, 200 revs or so. 200 revs isn't much, but the results were consistent and repeatable, which gave us confidence in the presented data. What kept us up at night was the discovery that the vane and end-wall (radially trailing edge) turbulent boundary layers were being augmented by vortex shedding, wake oscillations, and unsteady flow separations - variations which are not at brake passage frequency, i.e. a continuous supply of pin balls. After proving the aerodynamics, we now have over 800 revs of complex mechanical and thermal load validation, i.e. our dyno.

April will be here soon enough. And if instrumented track data isn't definitive enough for you, what can I say - shop elsewhere

[Hess RS]

Well I anxiously await the real world results.

[Hess RS]

Did anything ever come about with this?

[Mr Twisty]

Looks like he came back a month later and pulled the photo's he had posted... Google for Nallen Modrotor pulls up squat.

[Hess RS]

I have a feeling it performed exactly as I expected. But I have been wrong before. Once, a long time ago. haha!

Did some google-ing, cant find a trace of Nallen anywhere. No website, no blog, no nothing. Hmmm.