Si2k

Any metal conducts heat better than water. Doesn't mean anything in the context other wise we would still have air cooled engines.

My point stands. Water is the best coolant.

I'm fully aware of the difference between thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity. But in an engine cooling system you'd only want high thermal conductivity if the water pump stopped working, we have water pumps so high specific heat capacity allows lot of energy to going water without its temperature rising. This allows higher temperature differentials and therefore maximising heat transfer.

The same temperature differential along with massive surface area is why car radiators are so effective as heat exchangers.

Ultra_Nexus

Fair enough, if it's not a standard block, and if you want to use those bore sizes...

Either way, if iron blocks for decades can use water, I still don't see why having those liners will need waterless coolant.

Yeah, I get the temperature differential and mentioned it in my previous post which is the advantage, but the water has to transfer the heat to the ally.

And engines still are air cooled, the water/coolant just transfers the air cooling affect to a convenient efficient location where all cylinders can get equal cooling.

In terms of a practical application, I'm not disagreeing with you. In terms of hypothetical, for pure cooling effect - Mercury would be better.

Si2k

Why would mercury be better than water?

Ultra_Nexus

I'm going to write to Mythbusters!

richmc

As Ultra nexus pointed out we all have air cooled engines, we just use water/anitfreeze/magic juice to transfer the heat to a spot where the air can do it's stuff.

BenRNBP

I know we've gone off on one here but seeing as it's quite fun I thought I'd chuck my tuppence in before Myth-Busters settle it for us.

I always thought mercury wasn't wet and that heat won't transfer to it easily - making it a worse coolant than water.

WinFreak

They use it to cool nuclear reactors, that's all I know


Think it might be true that it's more capable of taking heat than water, but if it doesn't cool down as quick as the water does when it flows through the radiator it still won't do much good.

For example oil would be able to withstand more heat than water but it wouldn't be much good in your cooling systen.

Si2k

This was my point which is somewhat lost. Circulated water transfers heat better than any static metal component even will.

Most nuclear reactors are using water. Mercury also corrodes aluminium. Just ask the WW2 saboteurs to the Luftwaffe.

This may all be off topic however waterless coolant is the last thing you want in an engine for reasons explained above.

B0ZWELL

think you'll find it is Sodium in some reactors for the cooling system. Water in a nuclear reactor is also the moderator to slow the speed of the neutrons to find the next atom to split. a reactor will not work without a moderator. a reactor losing it's cooling system will immidiatly stop reacting but the daughter products will still produce a lot of heat causing a melt down.

seen this waterless system used in a race Hemi V8 that didn't overheat but kept very quickly blowing the coolant out. there were no headgasket issues as these had been done already so it was suspected that there were hot spots by the exhaust ports causing steam pockets. finished the race at Goodwood with no coolant loss at all.

razzele

It's an interesting discussion.

I was thinking of using this stuff From spring to autumn and then just add some antifreeze to protect the car over winter and flush it out come the new season.