The recent discussion on water cooling amp tubes got me thinking. Again.
(not a good thing)
Basically I would like to play with liquid cooling but I can't/won't use
water. While I was still working, I worked on a multi-kilowatt amplifier
that was oil cooled. It went into the avionics bay of an aircraft where
all the rest of the equipment was also oil cooled.
As I recall, the oil looked and felt like mineral oil, but I'm sure the
military wouldn't use something that common and cheap and low flash
point. At the time, I pulled up the MSDS for the oil but no longer have
it and of course I can't remember the numbers.
K8CU talks about using ATF for cooling liquid here:
http://www.realhamradio.com/liquid-cooling.htm
Unfortunately, there is no indication in the article that he or anyone
else actually used ATF. Now ATF contains sulphur compounds that eat
silver plating and cannot normally be used in things like dummy loads
because of this property. However, a set of heat exchangers used for
tube cooling would not have that problem.
K8CU also mentions mineral oil and says it is not suitable due to the
low flash point. I have to wonder about that because for one I would
hope nothing in a system I would build would ever get hot enough to
worry about flash point and two, it probably won't flash anyway due it
being in a closed system with little or no free air/oxygen.
What I'm looking for is someone who has actually done liquid cooling
with something other than water. No, I have no interest in "flat earth"
theories, or what you think you remember from a thermodynamics class you
sat through 40 years ago. I want actual test results and operational
data from real world applications.
73, Larry
Larry - W7IUV
DN07dg - central WA
http://w7iuv.com
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