Oil has been used before for cooling computers :)


back in the 80,s on main frames


And some oil viscosity is pretty light its not like that 50 grade you use your car :)

Oil is not a great cooling medium. Oil retains too much heat. Suzuki tried in their early GSXR motorcycles where oil was sprayed under the pistons. While it did work OK, they realized that water cooling was the only way to go. Porsche had an oil cooler in the nose of the RSR types and an oil reservoir in the RR fender had something like 7 gallons of it slinging around. It was a dry sump system where very little oil in contained within the engine. Porsche uses water cooled heads and air cooled cylinders on their race cars. I think water is still the way to go.

First, if the oil retained too much heat, it only means that the cooling solution was inadequate.


I (finally!) found a viscosity chart for peanut oil (PDF, 6 pages) (at Jabsco, of all places!)

The good news, is that it's a Newtonian fluid (as those in the know would normally expect), which means that its viscosity remains the same, regardless of the pressure applied to it. (Some odd liquids actually increase in viscosity, simply by applying a higher pressure).

The bad news is that it's got an (estimated) viscosity of 38 cP, at 100 deg F (and from other charts I've seen, it's awfully optimistic).

Here's another chart:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/sgvisc.html

So chewyboy, it's up to you to find a pump that can handle that kind of viscosity!

actually i'm leaning toward a differnt type of oil right now (not really sure why i'm stuck on this oil kick thing) there are 2 different types i'm looking at. first is a cooling oil i use with the mills i use. the second is the new oil that is in the transformers around my area. they are going away from the stuff that caused lots and lots of cancer and have a new item out there that from what they say doesn't cause lots of cancer. good news is that it has the consistancy of a thick coffee. gets rid of heat really well. and is non-conductive. I've been talking with my buddies at the electrical company and hopefully will either have a sample soon or have a name so that i can get some from my local oil distributor. either way hopefully something good will happen.

Er, close. Newtonian fluids have a viscosity that is not influenced by stresses in the fluid. Pressure is only a small component of those stresses, and it is a molecular pressure, not the thermodynamic one you're probably familiar with.

Non-Newtonain fluids have viscosites that can increase or decrease with stress or even change with time.

Also, there are physical reasons that oils are almost always going to have a higher viscosity than water.

Alchemy

Thank you, Lt.Dan, for the voice of reason. Guys, what are you talking about w/ all this oil business? Just cause some use oil for cooling doesn't mean it's appropriate for PCs. I may have missed it, but has someone mentioned some numbers comparing thermal properties of oil and water? I love to see you guys brainstorming, but seems like efforts could be used better somewhere else. Like chewboy said, "not really sure why i'm stuck on this oil kick thing".

edit: here's some numbers i found. More @ http://www.ex.ac.uk/cimt/dictunit/notes5.htm . Value for canola oil i found on some school newsboard so don't know how accurate it is, but it's probably close.

air: .026 W/mK (Watts/ meter degree Kelvin)
canola oil: .19
h2o: .61
mercury: 140
copper: 401

So if you guys are serious, get some mercury!

So from what I read...if you mix concrete and silver together...you might have the perfect combination. :P

Tuff

Oil cooling has yet to be done (in a cooling loop), but it's worth it to go through the exercise of finding out why it's so darn difficult to do.

As for mercury, it's extremely hazardous, and expensive.

Here is a shot in the dark...I have no spec's on this product but how about Acetone?

Tuff

peanut oil works EXCEPTIONALLY WELL

the difficulty is finding the two Thai girls

Paratherm MR is most likely what you are looking for...I have sent a PM to you....Have a look

Tuff