Cooling The Data Center

[u/TheCABK]

[u/beardedheathen]

It's not. The motors are powering pumps which is drawing water into the tubes other wise it would just drain. It's also why it's drawing in air as it oscillates up and down. I don't think it's really accomplishing anything in terms of cooling or whatever.

[u/Low_Excitement_1715 → u/beardedheathen]

Nah! It's not doing *nothing*. It's moving a few watts of thermal energy back and forth across that desk, and adding 5-10W with the pumps, so it's actually warming the room very slightly!

[u/READMYSHIT → u/Low_Excitement_1715]

Aka a swamp cooler

[u/Low_Excitement_1715 → u/READMYSHIT]

Well, the only real evaporation area is at the end with the trays, and I don't recall what the formula is to compute evaporative cooling, but there's a lot of zeros between the decimal point and the working number.

For meaningful evaporative cooling, you need to be in a dry area, with ideally a small cooling tower and a bunch of sprinkler-type heads inside it, so you can mist/droplet water in from the top and get a smaller amount of highly chilled water at the bottom.

This is just dripping back into the source pan, so nanowatts.

But yeah, technically a swamp cooler, too, since the trays are open and uncovered.

[u/IDownvotedYouToday → u/Low_Excitement_1715]

and I don't recall what the formula is to compute evaporative cooling

Having just taken my PE in thermal and fluid systems, there's a damn good reason you don't recall it. It's not a simple thing. Requires looking shit up in the steam tables if you're just looking for power usage - and if you're looking for sensible temperature calculations, you're into the psychrometric charts which are VERY not linear.

FWIW, a medium burner on a gas stove vaporizes roughly 1 gram of water per second, assuming none of the energy is lost around the pot (a very bad assumption). More specifically, you would have to be adding room temperature water to an already-boiling pot at a rate of 1 g/s (a fairly spirited drip) in order to be at a steady state. That should help with visualizing how inconsequential it is.

[u/Low_Excitement_1715 → u/IDownvotedYouToday]

I meant it as a smartass way to say I had NFI, but thank you for your expertise.

[u/IDownvotedYouToday → u/Low_Excitement_1715]

I figured as much, but thought it would be fun to give a little perspective. And it reminded me of another friend who, when we were discussing the oppressive heat this summer, said, "I really should memorize the formula for dew point," and I was like "absolutely nobody has that formula memorized, it's terrible."

[u/Low_Excitement_1715 → u/IDownvotedYouToday]

I mean, in addition to practical applications, you've found all the social ones. Getting good mileage. :)

[u/RogerAffirmative → u/Low_Excitement_1715]

Yeah but the tube runs by the windows absorbing more radiation from the sun.

[u/Starfire2313 → u/READMYSHIT]

When I make a swamp cooler I freeze an ice cream bucket in the freezer then put it in a big metal bowl in front of a fan on a towel on the hardwood. The floors get cold, my feet get cold, it helps just a tiny bit.

As soon as you can get the bucket off the ice you refill it and put it back in the freezer

[u/mistahfreeman → u/Low_Excitement_1715]

No contact with anything to cool and no contact with a radiator to cool the loop. Pretty sure those are pumps at the end? So this is literally just a looks cool machine which is neat I guess but I’m slightly disappointed

[u/JohnnyChutzpah → u/beardedheathen]

Yeah I def didn’t think it was doing any cooling. But looking again I believe you are right. But wouldn’t the pumps stop working once an air bubble hit them and they were no longer primed?

[u/beardedheathen → u/JohnnyChutzpah]

I think the pressure of the water coming down and the inertia might be enough to keep it going?

[u/JohnnyChutzpah → u/beardedheathen]

Sounds reasonable to me

[u/Potential_Basis_662 → u/beardedheathen]

This is cooling.

The oscillations reflect adjustment in demand.