Cooling System

Water cooling is a method of heat removal from components. As opposed to air cooling, water is used as the heat transmitter. Water cooling is commonly used for cooling internal combustion engines in automobiles and electrical generators. more...

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Other uses include cooling the lubricant oil of pumps; for cooling purposes in heat exchangers; cooling products from tanks or columns, and recently, cooling of various major components inside top-end personal computers. The main mechanism for water cooling is convective heat transfer.

Advantages

The advantages of using water cooling over air cooling include water's higher specific heat capacity, density and thermal conductivity. This allows water to transmit heat over greater distances with much less volumetric flow and reduced temperature difference. For cooling CPU cores, this is its primary advantage: the tremendously increased ability to transport heat away from source to a secondary cooling surface allows for large, more optimally designed radiators rather than small, inefficient fins mounted on or near a heat source such as a CPU core. The "water jacket" around an engine is also very effective at deadening mechanical noises, which makes the engine quieter.

Open method

An open water cooling system makes use of evaporative cooling, lowering the temperature of the remaining (unevaporated) water. A component such as a bong cooler replaces the radiator of a closed water cooling system. The obvious downside of this method is the need to continually replace the water lost due to evaporation.

Automotive usage

The use of water cooling carries the risk of damage from freezing. Automotive and many other engine cooling applications require the use of a water and antifreeze mixture to lower the freezing point to a temperature unlikely to be experienced. Antifreeze also inhibits corrosion from dissimilar metals and can increase the boiling point, allowing a wider range of water cooling temperatures. Its distinctive odor also alerts operators to cooling system leaks and problems that would go unnoticed in a water-only cooling system. The heated water can then be used to warm the air conditioning system inside the car, if so desired.

Another less common chemical additive is products to reduce surface tension. These additives are meant to increase the efficiency of automotive cooling systems. Such products are used to enhance the cooling of underperforming or undersized cooling systems or in racing where the weight of a larger cooling system could be a disadvantage.

Computer usage

See also: computer cooling

In the past few years, water cooling has become noticed for cooling computer components, especially the CPU. Water cooling usually consists of a CPU water block, a water pump and a heat exchanger (usually a radiator with a fan attached). Water cooling not only allows for quieter operation and improved overclocking, but with improved heat handling capabilities hotter processors can be supported. Less commonly, GPUs, Northbridges, hard drives, memory, VRM, and even power supplies are also water cooled.

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