why not something other than water in the circuit?

[ares350]

theres gotta be something better than water... no?


I know people have thought about this, but Im curious. gotta be some chemical that has higher specific heat and maybe more viscous.

[RoD]

im using advance auto antifreeze. Water is corrosive from all the minerals in it.

that and i work for advance, near free :P

[ares350]

what about a REALLY low weight oil? works for cars...

not too pretty, wont glow in UV. but we could measure synthetic vs organic!

[Soja]

Check out this (http://overclockers.com/articles993/index03.asp) recent front page article.

[ILikeMy240sx]

Originally posted by ares350
theres gotta be something better than water... no?


I know people have thought about this, but Im curious. gotta be some chemical that has higher specific heat and maybe more viscous.

water is readily available and its very very cheap. And you would want something that has relatively low viscosity...

Yea the front page article does explain alot.

[ares350]

eh did I get that backwords again? I thought more viscous was more fluid. lower viscosity was thicker.

[Soja]

Yep ;). Since we're on the topic, I remember there being a liquid/additive sticky or thread that covered a lot of liquids and their properties related to watercooling. Anyone remember or have the link?

[bigsoomo]

Yep . Since we're on the topic, I remember there being a liquid/additive sticky or thread that covered a lot of liquids and their properties related to watercooling. Anyone remember or have the link?

sup soj? are you talking about this LINK (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=107441) ?

[Soja]

Nope, it was more of a test within a thread. Mostly on other liquids rather than additives actually.

[hafa]

How about a mixture of mercury, lead oxide, cyanide and ricin?

Happy April fools, all..just remembering some of the sillier past threads on this topic :p

[johan851]

Talking about this bad boy?

http://www.overclockers.com/articles609/index.asp

How about a mixture of mercury, lead oxide, cyanide and ricin?
Not sure about its cooling properties, but it sure sounds delicious! :D

[Shadowcat]

I agree with hafa, but he is missing uranium sludge

[Soja]

Hafa, it's not april 1st in cali just yet :D

Ah, you beat me johan!. I started looking through the frontpage articles just now. For some reason I thought it was a thread. Thanks.

[ares350]

:p bet mercury would do the trick great! just no way to pump it. oh and the little hitch of it being highly toxic.

eh.

[Ad Rock]

Originally posted by ares350
what about a REALLY low weight oil? works for cars...

not too pretty, wont glow in UV. but we could measure synthetic vs organic!

If this were true we would be putting oil in our cars radiators. Since we have no parts to lubricate in our systems there is no reason to run oil. Also they use the oil in cars to lubicate and not cool :p .

[reaper79]

I run orange juice through with clear tubes. Nice purtty color. Low pulp of course, and only Tropicana pure premium. It's mostly water and the acidic quality helps keep the block and radiator clean;)

J/K 4/1

[Metalwave]

Originally posted by ares350
eh did I get that backwords again? I thought more viscous was more fluid. lower viscosity was thicker.

In any liquid cooling situation you really want a liquid with low viscosity, high heat capacity (constant pressure) and high density. Viscosity of a fluid is it's ability to resist deformation (i.e. a gas has a very, very low visc. and it's easy to change it's shape, where playdoh has a very high viscosity and so it's harder to change it's shape). You want a low viscosity so your pump doesn't have to work as hard for a certain flow rate - meaning it'll give you less resistance through your tubes and blocks.

Wanting a high heat capacity is obvious. A high density is wanted because the more molecules there are per liter, the more heat can be transported per liter. Unfortunatly, the higher the density, the higher the viscosity. This is not always true, but it's a general trend.

Good cooling agents (and some properties @ 27C) that aren't expensive are: (cp = heat capacity, r = density, mu = visc.)

distilled water - cp = 4.2, r = 1, mu = 0.894
ethanol alcohol - cp = 2.43, r = 1, mu = 1 (fumes are nausious)
mercury - cp = 0.137, r = 13.6, mu = 1.15 (toxic fumes)
Glycerine - cp = 2.35, r = 0.8, mu = 150
Ammonia - cp = 4.7, r = 1, mu = 1.05 (fumes are nausious)

These are commonly used coolants. Actually, most of the time these are mixed in some way to produce coolants that share properties. For example, Glycerine, ethanol and water are mixed to make glycol - the original automotive coolant (they use something similar today). Most of the additives you buy are also partly mixtures of these chemicals. (Cars use that yellow antifreeze because water itself would freeze in the winter and crack your engine block.)

But you can see for yourself that distilled water is the best all around. It's non-toxic and has no nasty smell, doesn't stain you, very good cooling properties, pumps easy and is dirt cheap ($1.50 / gallon). So unless you'll chill you're water to near freezing, water is the way to go.

Hope this helps explain things a little.

[ls7corvete]

Actually oil is very important in the cooling of your engine. My grandpa always said "Oils most important job is to cool, second is to clean and third is to lubricate."

you dont think your bearings get hot doing 7000 rpms?

[ares350]

yeah the coolant cools the oil. in many cars they give you oil temp and not coolant temp. guess the oil that lubricates best would be way too thick to pump through a radiator.