Watercooling
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Watercooling is a method of heat removal from components. Contrary to air cooling, it uses water as the heat transmitter and is commonly used for cooling motors in automobiles. Other uses include cooling the lubricant oil of pumps; for cooling purposes in heat exchangers; and cooling products from tanks or columns.
The advantages of using water cooling over air cooling include water's higher specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity, meaning water can transmit heat approximately thirty times faster than air.
A typical watercooling setup consists of an object to be cooled, a pump which circulates the water and a radiator such as a large heatsink (possibly with a fan). These components are linked by tubes.
An optional watercooling component is a reservoir, which helps to prevent the formation of air bubbles in the system.
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Computer watercooling
In the past few years, watercooling has become important for cooling computer components, especially the CPU. Watercooling is done using three primary components consisting of a CPU water block, a water pump and a heat exchanger. Watercooling 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, and even power supplies are also watercooled.
Dedicated overclockers will occasionally use phase change cooling in place of more common passive heat exchangers. Watercooling systems in which water is cooled directly by the evaporator coil of a phase change system generally provide superior cooling, but this uses much more electricity and antifreeze must be added due to the low temperature. Common places from which to borrow the required phase change system are a household dehumidifier or air conditioner.
The Apple Macintosh G5 was the first mainstream desktop computer to have watercooling (for the CPU) as standard.
Open watercooling
An open watercooling 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 watercooling system. The obvious downside of this method is the need to continually replace the water lost due to evaporation.
Industrial watercooling
High grade industrial water (produced by reverse osmosis) and potable water are amongst the liquids used as cooling water.
Some nuclear reactors use heavy water as cooling. Most of the time, heavy water is employed in a nuclear reactors because it is a moderator for the nuclear chain reaction. For the main cooling system, normal water is probably employed through the use of a heat exchanger. Reactors that use other materials for moderation (graphite) may also use normal water for cooling.
See also
- CPU cooling
- Aircooling
- Heat pipe cooling
- Peltier cooling
External links
- Water Cooling Guide (http://www.overclock.net/overclock.php?file=articles/water-cooling-guide.htm)
- Introduction to computer watercooling (http://www.nordichardware.com/Guides/?skrivelse=347&page=2)
- "How to": Watercooling (http://www.subzerotech.com/index/module/sz_articles_display/id/22/page/1)
- Guide: Watercooling: The basics (http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showpost.php?p=682768&postcount=1)
- Watercooling to gain pace in the OEM market? (http://www.dvhardware.net/article4746.html)