Quote:
Originally posted by myv65
Bill,
I'm with Cathar on this one, and I think it's purely a matter of how you've interpreted his words. I'll offer up my take on what he said. Cathar, please jump in if you see something amiss.
When he said "the same time in the waterblock and radiator" what he likely meant was that the relative percentage is unaffected by flow rate. If the block's volume is 1/10th the radiator's then irrespective of flow rate the water is in the radiator ten times longer than in the block.
A residence time within the radiator is definitely a requirement, but simply slowing flow down generally does not improve radiator efficiency. The "right" way to increase residence time is to (duh) have a bigger radiator. I believe we're all in agreement that infinite residence time in an infinitesimal radiator is bad. For radiators, size rules, particularly the surface area for convection to air.
All the other observations about total flow rate and pump power are pretty much spot on the mark. Folks looking to achieve a "real 3 gpm" typically don't have any idea of what that truly takes or how little (if any) the benefit will be. What's really comical is when they wish to combine this with 7V fans for their radiator. Can anyone say "counter-productive"?
{edit}Damn, I'm too slow. . .
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I agree aswell.
I think that when I first began contributing to this thread people were under the impression I was gunning for some rediculously high flow rate.
I have never denied that the higher the flow rate, the more significant the pump becomes as a heat source. Most of the people I try and convince that more flow would be an advantage are running the kind of system that would have a flow rate most likely below 1gpm. For these people, trying to increase the flow to say 1.5 gpm from aroun 0.5gpm would be a real advantage.
8-ball