Quote:
Originally Posted by Crumpp
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The benefit comes from getting more work out of the turbocharger; if you cruise higher then the turbocharger has a bigger expansion ratio to work with and can therefore get more work out of the exhaust.
Charge temperature is limiting, and you'd obviously rather get your supercharger work from the turbine than the crankshaft. So you throw away the supercharger, but that means you need to either go to DI or else inject into the eye of the turbosupercharger impeller to homogenise the mixture.
The turbocharger came from GE, whilst the piston engine came from P&W.
Fuel injection into the turbocharger wasn't viable because of the fire risk, both in case of leaks between the hot and cold sides of the turbocharger, and because of the relatively long ducting from turbocharger to piston engine, which would otherwise have been full of stoichiometric mixture. But most importantly, it wasn't viable because it would have been almost impossible to start the engine unless the turbocharger was clutched to the crankshaft for that purpose, which in turn wasn't possible due to the physical separation between turbocharger and piston engine which was itself a consequence of the historical decision that GE would make turbochargers in isolation from the piston engine manufacturers.
The thermodynamic benefit comes from utilisation of exhaust enthalpy which would otherwise have gone to waste. However, there is an enthalpy loss equal to the sum of enthalpy drop across the aftercooler, and the cooling drag on the cold side thereof; if fuel had been injected upstream of the turbosupercharger, the compression process would have had a higher apparent isentropic efficiency, and the aftercooler would have had less work to do because the compressor delivery temperature would have been lower.
In essence, the benefit comes from improved matching/work balance rather than from going to DI itself. In other words, they wanted to throw away the supercharger to get more of their compressor work from the turbocharger, and this drove them to DI because they then didn't have a method to homogenise the mixture. So DI is a consequence rather than a cause.