Why can't you run a thin oil, like WD40 or something, for coolant? Oil is used to cool transformers. I believe it would last a lot longer than water/antifreeze mix, would lube the pump, would prevent rust, won't freeze, and would largely avoid catastrophic engine failure if leaking into the crankcase.
Why not light oil for coolant?
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Likely fire in the event of collision, cost, are two thoughts. In the event of leakage, it would make a gooey mess...... I suspect it would require a larger cooling system... I'm sure there are other reasons. I think it is used in transformers because it is non conductive? Distilled water is too until you add corrosion inhibitors. I'm sure someone will come up with better reasons..
Kestas
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What are the heat transfer characteristics of oil compared with regular coolant?
Plus, think back to the mess everytime the cooling system is being maintained or repaired, or if the system springs a leak.
Plus, think back to the mess everytime the cooling system is being maintained or repaired, or if the system springs a leak.
Petroleum-based oils are generally conductive. The stuff in transformers is special, and transformers don't use totally bare wires inside.
Leaking motor oil is bad enough for runoff into the ground and bodies of water including drinking reservoirs. You wouldn't want to have a thinner oil leaking everywhere from cooling systems on top of that.
That said, ethylene glycol-based antifreeze as used in automotive cooling systems mixed with water is a sugar-based (glyc-) heavy alcohol (-ol), which is why it tastes sweet, and is toxic to animals including people. Propylene glycol is an increasingly used "environmentally friendly" substitute, but what isn't widely known is that its toxicity dose (LD50) for small animals such as rats is only about twice the LD50 for ethylene glycol. Propylene glycol just happens to be "safe" for humans in small doses, which is why it is approved for coolants in food service applications and can be used as a sweetener. I agree that we need a better antifreeze and coolant than either of these mixed with water.
Leaking motor oil is bad enough for runoff into the ground and bodies of water including drinking reservoirs. You wouldn't want to have a thinner oil leaking everywhere from cooling systems on top of that.
That said, ethylene glycol-based antifreeze as used in automotive cooling systems mixed with water is a sugar-based (glyc-) heavy alcohol (-ol), which is why it tastes sweet, and is toxic to animals including people. Propylene glycol is an increasingly used "environmentally friendly" substitute, but what isn't widely known is that its toxicity dose (LD50) for small animals such as rats is only about twice the LD50 for ethylene glycol. Propylene glycol just happens to be "safe" for humans in small doses, which is why it is approved for coolants in food service applications and can be used as a sweetener. I agree that we need a better antifreeze and coolant than either of these mixed with water.
the conductivity of an oil being used in automotive cooling is not an issue. we're not running thoudsnds of volts through the cooling system.
what is the issue is that oil sucks compared to plain old water or a water/antifreeze mix in terms of its ability to take up and expel heat in an automotive application.
there is no liquid available for under a couple hundred bucks a gallon that can carry off heat and transfer it to an active cooler like water can and still survive in a hostile automotive enviroment.
3m makes some kinda wonder fluid called chloroform or somthing like that but it costs hundreds of dollars a gallon and isnt suitable for automotive use.
you could also use windshield deicer fluid in the rad. this is mostly water and methanol. it would be more efficent by 1 or 2 precent but who wants to have meth in their coolant? i sure dont want its corrosive effects.
you cant beat water as a coolant. i have looked into it before. there is nothing out there that works as good or as cheap or is quitable than water.
what is the issue is that oil sucks compared to plain old water or a water/antifreeze mix in terms of its ability to take up and expel heat in an automotive application.
there is no liquid available for under a couple hundred bucks a gallon that can carry off heat and transfer it to an active cooler like water can and still survive in a hostile automotive enviroment.
3m makes some kinda wonder fluid called chloroform or somthing like that but it costs hundreds of dollars a gallon and isnt suitable for automotive use.
you could also use windshield deicer fluid in the rad. this is mostly water and methanol. it would be more efficent by 1 or 2 precent but who wants to have meth in their coolant? i sure dont want its corrosive effects.
you cant beat water as a coolant. i have looked into it before. there is nothing out there that works as good or as cheap or is quitable than water.
We had a diesel air compressor that I think was oil cooled. It was one of those biege ones with a John Deere engine. We've rented a pile of these things with the Beige and JD but this one in particular did not have any spot to check the coolant. We looked on and off for the coolant reservoir for days! It was a completely enclosed system. You'd have to be exact when filling that sucker up or you'd be sure to pop it.
Motorcycles also use oil as coolant but it doesn't have a seperate system. The lubricating oil is just run through coolers or the frame. Some do this along with an antifreeze system, some don't have antifreeze at all.
I've also towed melting pots that used oil for heat transfer. They were running between 400 and 600F with about 500 gallons capacity. I didn't like the idea of having that behind me...would not have been pretty if somebody hit it. One single drop would make your skin bubble up and hurt so much you'd try to whipe it off. When you whiped it off you'd burn your other hand!
Steve
Motorcycles also use oil as coolant but it doesn't have a seperate system. The lubricating oil is just run through coolers or the frame. Some do this along with an antifreeze system, some don't have antifreeze at all.
I've also towed melting pots that used oil for heat transfer. They were running between 400 and 600F with about 500 gallons capacity. I didn't like the idea of having that behind me...would not have been pretty if somebody hit it. One single drop would make your skin bubble up and hurt so much you'd try to whipe it off. When you whiped it off you'd burn your other hand!
Steve
Ethanol is another terrible anti-freeze. Same reasons. During WWII one of my Aunts used her husbands whiskey stash in the radiator because anti-freeze was rationed and she couldn't get any. He was kinda ****** when he got back from the war.
She said the car smelled good when she drove it.
I was only about 2 at the time, but the story has been told so many times in our family that I can almost smell the car
Petroleum based oils are generally paraffinic - definitely NOT conductive any more than wax is. In addition to transformers, certain precision capacitors use oil for their dialectric. While glycerin is sweet to the palate, that does not make it a sugar. Sugars are identified with the suffix, "ose" - as in sucrose, fructose, dextrose, glucose, lactose, etc. Many sugars are not at all sweet tasting.
No problem with water as coolant; in fact, it's the most efficient coolant widely available. It's the antifreeze we mix with it that's the problem. Forgot to mention the heat transfer issues with oil. In fact, oil is pretty lousy as a coolant compared to water, which is one reason why you don't often see the oil-based water pump lubricant additives anymore.
My comments about transformer oils were to answer John K's question.
My comments about transformer oils were to answer John K's question.
I could see it now, going to the drag strip and waiting to run my car while the track crew has to get the WD-40 off the track.
Methanol is a pretty terrible coolant antifreeze; it boils off at around 170'F. They used to use it back in Model-T days (along with honey!) and you'd have to buy a winter thermostat that opened at, my guess, 150'F. So you'd be tooling around the roaring 20's on that great 30-weight non-detergent oil, never fully warming up, with the choke halfway on...
If you got in a pinch and had to add windshield antifreeze to your radiator, the 70% methanol would boil off pretty fast leaving 30% water and blue dye. So you'd have to add more and more until it finally boiled down to mostly water.
If you got in a pinch and had to add windshield antifreeze to your radiator, the 70% methanol would boil off pretty fast leaving 30% water and blue dye. So you'd have to add more and more until it finally boiled down to mostly water.
Actually, oil as a coolant has been tried. Rumely "Oil Pull" farm tractors from a long time ago used oil instsead of water as a coolant, and they were a somewhat popular tractor and seemed to be reliable.
Water is an excellent coolant, as long as it stays in liquid form. If it changes to steam, its heat tranferring ability falls dramatically. The problem is that inside an engine, hot spots can result and the water or water/antifreeze will turn to steam, causing the loss of ability to cool that hot spot so the hot spot will grow.
Pure Proplyene glycol, unmixed with water, which is what Evans Coolant is, will stay in liquid form inside an engine at much higher temperatures than water, and so will transfer heat out of hot spots in an engine much better than water(steam) will. When it gets to the radiator, it will not transfer the heat to the atmosphere as well as liquid water, but that as big of a problem. So, if you are comparing liquid water to propylene glycol, water wins, but if you are comparing water in the form of steam to proplyene glycol, which what can exist in an engine, proplyene glycol transfers heat better because it stays in liquid form at a higher temperature.
Water is an excellent coolant, as long as it stays in liquid form. If it changes to steam, its heat tranferring ability falls dramatically. The problem is that inside an engine, hot spots can result and the water or water/antifreeze will turn to steam, causing the loss of ability to cool that hot spot so the hot spot will grow.
Pure Proplyene glycol, unmixed with water, which is what Evans Coolant is, will stay in liquid form inside an engine at much higher temperatures than water, and so will transfer heat out of hot spots in an engine much better than water(steam) will. When it gets to the radiator, it will not transfer the heat to the atmosphere as well as liquid water, but that as big of a problem. So, if you are comparing liquid water to propylene glycol, water wins, but if you are comparing water in the form of steam to proplyene glycol, which what can exist in an engine, proplyene glycol transfers heat better because it stays in liquid form at a higher temperature.
Not only is oil a poor heat transfer fluid but it is also incompatable with many materials in the cooling system such as seals.
it was readily available, and commonly used through at least the mid 60's. DuPont's brand was Zerone. If I remember right, it was colored purple. (maybe not)
THe other one was Zerex, the "permanent" antifreeze, so-called because it would not boil away like the alcohol.
An advantage it has though it that the stronger the concentration, the lower the freeze point -- not like the ethylene glycol that reaches a minimum freeze point at, what? 70%.
I still have an old hydrometer with two floats, one for alcohol.
You *can* use oil as a coolant.
Victory motorcycles use oil cooling in conjunction with air cooling.
A number of automobile engines (the Nissan VG30DETT, turbo-charged Neons) cool the pistons with oil spray.
A lot of turbchargers have been oil cooled, which is why the practice of letting them idle after a hard run is common.
In transformers the oil is not electrically conductive and won't evaporate, which long unattended service requires.
The problem with oil cooling is the heat transfer coefficient of oil (related to its thermal conductivity) is a lot lower than water.
This means you'd need a much much larger radiator, cooling passages, and heater core. That doesn't work when size and weight are issues, which they are in most vehicles.
A similar but less severe problem arises in race cars, where simply adding ethylene glycol to the coolant water can raise combustion chamber temperatures to the danger point.
You'd also have the problem of a hot oil leak from the heater core into the passenger compartment or a fire when the system developed a leak.
Mickey M, nice rundown on the issues with using oil as a coolant. A major fender bender would also make the street look like the Exxon Valdez ran aground there.
I used to get the oil boiling in the melting pot. It would smoke like a steam locomotive but it never caught on fire. You'd have to throw 1000 pounds of rubber into the pot to cool it down!
Steve
Steve
When my brother couldn't afford antifreeze for his flat head ford in the early 60's he used kerosene all winter....was cheap he said.
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