How to Cool Large Battery Banks

Did you look at available server room/server rack cooling technology?

http://www.ptsdcs.com/servroomcooling.asp

Also, Can You get an aluminum cladding or extrusions onto the steel case (or to replace the steel case?) for heat sink purposes, To facilitate the pull of heat from the battery?

If my speculation about your application is correct, could you use a night radiating reverse thermosiphon flat plate radiator to cool a water reservoir/ bath which could be used as thermal mass in the insulated battery house to act as thermal "flywheel" absorb/release the heat? maybe a couple of thes e reservoir tanks inbetween the batteries...

I originally thought of doing this to create water in the desert (I was Young) by pulling water out of the air. Then I found out there is no water in the air of the desert to pull...

But the idea of reverse flat plate radiator working by thermosiphon is still , to my mind anyway, an elegant solution waiting for a problem...

milo

Jack of all trades and Milo, One of the limitations is the lack of any space in which to install extra air conditioning. If I had the room that would have been my first choice.

Most boat builders begrudge the space they have to allocate to batteries. Which is why we have a ventilation problem in the first place. No air space and no vents.

This in turn means not enough room to even have decent air flow channels. For the record I am not talking about fork lift batteries. Because of their construction method they must be placed with an overhead hoist or crane. Not feasible with most boats. A pratical limitation being the individual battery cases must be light enough to be handled by one person and muscle power. The ubiquitous 8D truck battery is beyond the ability of many boat owners ( aging sedentary guys) to lift and they opt for golf cart batteries. However when you now assemble a bank of these totalling 800 - 2000 amp hours the compact packing leads to hot spots within the grouping.

I had been toying with the idea of placing thin heat sink plates used as seperators between cases. That is where the drawing design sits at the moment. I allowed 1/4" spacing but that could be increased. So then the question becomes how to construct these plates and interconnect them without making the cooling system as expensive as the battery. And could the prospective owner be convinced it would not be a maintenance headache.

A corollary requirement is this: these batteries must be secured to prevent any movement in all directions. A loose pack wil not meet the construction standards.

So any spacers must be solid. Solid spaces would also inhibit air flow unless they are honeycombed.

What is a low cost way to attach tubing to sheet stock for efficient heat transfer into the fluid. Welding or soldering looks to be very labor intensive and thus costly. If shop made it must also be workable by verylimited skill yard workers. Volume is so low it doesn't even make senst to design mass volume fabrication. I try to adapt existing stuff for new applications wherever possible.

Milo the idea sounds interesting but I am having a bit of trouble visualizing what you have in mind. could you perhaps elaborate . We are not talking about a "battery house" but about batteries tucked under the bed or into a closet. Yeah I know; it gives me lots of concern. BUT! I have no control over what any builder does and if they don't like what I recommend they simply ignoer me.

Charging is usually done daytime so heat buildup tend to coincide with mid day when outdoor ambient is hottest. Worst possible combination!

Keel coolers may offer an option, if the plumbing is not too complicated and if sea water temps are low enough to be useful. Since water conducts heat 25 times better than air I have some hopes this might be feasible. Given the power draw not to mention cost, I suspect Peltier cells are not a viable and cost effective choice.

If the cooling system cost approaches the replacement cost of a battery bank its just not practical. An owner would not consider it worth while.

I thought I posted an answer last night, but I don't see it here this morning.

I had no I dea you were talking about a boat.

I thought you were talkingabout heat build up in a remote battery system at stagnation and charging temperatures in the desert.

Given you r application and constraints, I have nothing to offer, save the fact that hydrogen under the bed is probably less of a problem than electrolyte on the floor in living quarters...

milo

These are sealed AGM batteries. Under normal conditions they do not leak nor do they vent. My own preference would be to make the compartment gasketed and air tight. However cost constraints preclude doing it right. Its just amazing how Chinese companies think they can totally ignore sound safety practices. One of the biggest reasons I am not impressed with chinese manufacturing. But that's another story. US domestic companies have chosen to shift all manufacturing over there if they can get away with it. So we have to deal with it I guess.

Edignan are you running air through the spiral wound tube? Is there a particular name to designate such tubing when buying it in bulk? One of the issues affecting the situation is a low differential between the too hot batteries and the available cooling medium. Ambient air temps are around 32C on average and the too hot batteries are running between 42 and 48 Centigrade. They will be ruined in a year or so. Of necessity the heat exchanger need to be large area to work due to the low differential. Refrigerated plates in sufficient quantity / size are so costly they exceed the price of a replacement set of batteries. However if I can get plates that can be cut and trimmed to size and do not need refrigerant just cooling liquid like water it may be feasible. I have dismantled fridges, freezers, and even peltier cells but so far have not seen something that can be adapted. The solution would have to be something that can be done one at a time without recourse to complex fabrication methods or specialized shop tooling. Since batteries tend to generate heat more in the top part than in the bottom half, I could probably get away with 45cm X 45cm plates of 12mm thickness. This thickness would have to contain the liquid channels carrying the cooling liquid. Finding such liquid tight plates that are mass produced so as to get a reasonably low unit price is the challenge.

The story of my life. If I get stuck on a project, it turns out no one else has gone before.

Does anyone know which kind of epoxy or adhesive has good thermal conductive characteristics. It ocurred to me that if I were to lay a series of loops of aluminum tubing on an aluminum sheet then glued this tube to the flat plate it would work as long as the glue that formed the fillet between round tube and flat plate conducted the heat.

Soldering copper tube to copper plate may prove problematic since such a large heat dissipator would such the heat away from the soldering point

In a mass production facility spot welding or TIG welding would work but this is low volume one at a time kind of fabrication.

I was going to make the same suggestion. Here is a GA point.

Why not epoxy the Peltier junctions right to the case of the batteries?

Because the Peltier cell has to have cooling fins attached to transfer the heat to any air or liquid flowing past it. With a maximum of 12mm there isn't room to spread any fins effectively.

Secondly the area on the battery requiring cooling is at least 16" X 16" minimum or 40 mm X 40 mm. Every one of the Peltier cells I have examined or seen in a catalog are much smaller than that. Evidently these are priced per square inch and cost figures I have seen range from $10 - $20 per square inch. Even at $1 per suqare inch the cost would be somewhere aroubnd $256 per battery and I need 5 per bank. It would be cheaper to let them boil and replace the battery every year or so.

For a peltier cell to cover a larger area such as the end wall of a cooler requires a large heat sink on the collector side. The samples I have on hand measure 5" thick with fins. Now we are talking of a depth that is almost half the total width of the entire cell. Same situation for the Chip set coolers in computers. The actual Peltier cell is small enough; but to get decent heat collection greater than the actual wafer area requires massive (relatively) volumes of heat sink material. Much too large to fit in the available space. Placing one square inch of Peltier cell on 256 square inches of heat radiating surface is not going to be effective. And the cost of covering the whole area is going to be prohibitive.

Kep in mind that the actual battery side is 229 X 557 mm. I had figured a slightly smaller plate would still be effective since little heat is generated at the very bottom of the battery case. But to go from 127,553.00 sq mm to 645.16 sq mm is a bit extreme. The plastic case of the battery would never transmit heat fast enough to be effective. I would only end up with a cool spot on a hot battery.

I did find one interesting Peltier cell product. A water cooler. The liquid container is only half a liter but it seems to keep up with a considerable water flow such as several glasses of water drained off in quick sucession.

That might work but only if I can somehow find a liquid tight plate with internal tubing for the coolant.

Excellent points.

What about a "cradle" of thin poly tubing forming a web that is epoxied to the side of the battery case in that 16" x 16" format. Pump water from out side the boat up into the tubing then back to the water body.

What epoxy do you suggest? Secondly direct epoxy to actual battery case is not recommended since changing battery would then become a nightmare. Hence my thinking to use plates that are squeezed up against the battery case. Not to mention which there may be an issue of some glue epoxies sticking to polyethylene.

A good polyethylene glue may not be a good heat conductor. And what if the battery is subsequently replaced with something different. If the replacement case is not compatible with the old glue its ahard job to find replacement. By the time these batteries needed replacement the boat would be half a world away. No guarantee the owner could find competent help in the next place.

But back to the epoxy. I am probably wrong but I thought epoxy was not especially heat conductive. If there is something out there please tell me.

With the right epoxy I could make up a serpentine tube coil and epoxy it between two heat collector plates. I am severely limited in funds with which to buy a lot of stuff to experiment with.

North of 60; what epoxy would you recommend as having excellent heat transmission characteristics? I had asked this question before in connection with epoxying or gluing the liquid carrying tubes to the flat collector plates.

A round tube only contacts a flat plate at point of tangency. A hefty fillet of heat conducting material is needed to transfer more heat into the pipe.

Let me do some research on that. I do recall from my early days, a manufacturer that made an epoxy mixed with a metal dust of some kind, aluminum or silver I think, that was great. I have used it a few times to seal cathode tubes on mercury arc rectifiers in early large DC drives. The tubes needed to heat at the same rate as the tank or it would break. This epoxy allowed it to do so. Might be just what you need. I'll see if I can pull the name of the stuff up from my memory.

Heat sinks need to be in contact, and with silicon grease to insure maximum heat transfer from the hot object. While we're talking about boats, there are thin cooling plates for onboard refridgeration, with the compressor mounted at a remote location. Usually 12VDC. Try westmarine.com.

Based on West Marine pricing I can buy a small boat for what they wanted for enough plates to fit in between battery blocks. However the builder in question has already informed prospective buyers that the yard now refuses to install that kind of plate system due to the number of warranty problems they have encountered. Either the product quality has degraded or , what is more likely, the yard workers simply lack the skills necessary to work with the stuff. Either way it doesn't look like a viable approach at this time. The plates I have seen take up 17 millimeters or so and we cannot get more than 12 mm of gap between the battery cases. Do these plates lend themselves to being cut to size with a saw?

I douby very much that they can be cut without rendering them usless or a citation from the EPA for releasing whatever the coolant is into the environment. Can they be placed horizontally on top of the battery bank? Prehaps extending the sides of the battery box up to retain the cold air? Maybe even making it portable so that it may be removed after the charging cycle is complete.

I suspect that the problem with installation be left to a certified refegeration expert. That way you get the biggest bang for the buck and warranties remain in effect.

Placing them horizontally on top would short out the battery terminals or if the heat conduction plates are non metallic still interfer with installing the connecting cables. Keep them far enough away to not short out the terminals and you won't get enough cooling. Right now fan ventilation is not enough.

Forget the portability suggestion. Charging is a daily occurrence and the battery is mounted underneath the bunk plinth and takes an hour to get at because of how the cabinetry is constructed. Even if it was accessible the Admiral would veto the notion.

"Certified Refrigeration expert". In the back waters of south east Asia? That sounds like a very low probability scenario.

As I said in an earlier post; the builder yard is already refusing to install cold plate refrigeration due to the number of problems they are having. Most likely due to yard worker lack of skills. These guys are cruising in places where they have difficulty finding relays and wall switches. Even if I do find a viable solution, it may prove impossible to find a source of materials until they cruise back to North America. Or we put together a care package and ship it overseas. But first a solution that can be proven to work. Once I figure out a prototype, it's up to the owners if they want to spend the money to build it. then when its proven to work, we either send instructions or worst case, mak a set and try to ship it over there.

I didn't quite follow whether these are cylindrical or rectangular?

How are they secured? Are they in one or more layers?

Is it possible to make a rack for them that has the top third of the battery in contact with a plate in the rack like you mentioned?

I am thinking that if you could make battery to rack plate contact you may also be able to run copper tubing through the rack and use seawater in the tubing. I have a mental picture, but have no idea if I am imagining anything near what you are talking about.

Can you download and use SketchUp? and send us a bit more detail? Cant say that I'll be any help, but I'll be glad to throw some ideas you way that might be stupid enough to spark a good idea.

There is no rack. The batteries are rectangular. Made by BSB LSE-2-800 At least for this job. Every job seem to be different. Typically they are placed in a group to facilitate wiring each 2V cell in series. The tall rectangular cases are stood on end on the (plywood or fiberglass ) floor. I have seen two rows and sometimes three rows. For a 24V boat you need 12 cells. So you have a 2 X 6 or a 3 X 4 assembly. In the power utility industry we used to have single rows and a rack to stack. This ensured adequate cooling and the problem never materialized. Except for submarines I have never seen a single row format utilized on a boat.

Unlike a real ship or commercial boat, pleasure craft builders and users always consider essential equipment a nuisance that intrude on the conveniences and appearance desired by owners. And in most pleasure craft, it appears that if the wife doesn't like it, it gets vetoed. So builders tend to cram essential hotel service equipment into every nook and cranny they can find just so long as it doesn't show and annoy her ladyship. I even hear owners complain that they can hear the ventilation fan noise.

Common practice is to cram heat producing equipment into inaccesible paces without ventilation, then complain the equipment malfunctions when it overheats. If you have ever seen a thermal runaway battery explode you know what I am worried about. Not sure how to insert CAD files (one of seven pages only) into this.

If I could find the plates I have figured out how and where to place them.

Its the fabrication of the actual cooling plates that seem to be the sticking point.

All the fridges and freezers I have examined so far are formed with die stamping or similar. That doesn't lend itself to custom one-off fabrication. Nor is it clear how the formed plates including the tubes are rendered liquid tight.

As a one-off, I thought to lay a zig zag tube on a plate. Then fasten, glue, weld, or whatever to create a good heat transfer from plate to tube. BUT! how to do the same with the other plate that forms the sandwich. The total thickness of the assembly is only 12 mm. Not much space to work in.

Round tube against flat plate means the only point of contact is minimal. Not especially good for heat transfer. Plug welding might work, but fabrication time/cost also increases considerably. And plug welding in thin millimeter stock is not recommended for unskilled yard labor. Factory made asembly will increase cost beyond point of being cost effective. At least with the techniques I am familiar with. I was hoping someone could suggest a technique I am not famimilar with that would work.

I was looking at Hydronic radiators for my house, you could use them or similar design for your purpose.

Is the battery bank arraigned utilizing a chimney effect to channel heat?

I'm not sure I follow you. The object is to remove heat from the boat. Where did you intend these heat radiators to be located? The heat source is the core of the battery. The battery cases were spread apart as much as possible. But that only gave a gap of 12 mm. And the temperature still climbed to 48C. The existing fans simply cannot push sufficient air through such tiny gaps. At least not enough to help.

Even the slimline radiators shown in your link appear to be far too wide to fit into a 12 mm slot. Doesn't look like they can be used to pull heat from the core of the battery in that shape. Did I miss something somewhere on the website? What I saw was 2" or 50 mm thick as a minimum.

The ambient air temp of 32 C or therabouts is too hot to be effective in removing enough heat. And so far it has been winter climate. Hate to think what is going to happen when summer heat comes along.

At another project I got involvd in we tried to use chilled water for air conditioning. Radiators proved to be somewhat less effective than we anticipated.

Okay, if you can not use the generic chimney effect then create an enclosure causing air to flow in a determined channel through a chiller core then around the batteries each in succession.

The 12mm clearance is limiting but we have the technology. Mix ceramic orbs into paint or an adhesive and apply to the battery casings. The ceramic orbs will efficiently transfer heat to the air coursing through the enclosure.

I'm waiting for some photos but I suspect that the real problem has to do with how the enclosure is constructed to begin with. If you have a fan blowing directly onto a flat wall half an inch away or trying to suck air when the fan is practically up against a flat barrier, you get greatly reduced flow. Does it matter what kind of ceramic orbs or what size, or if they are hollow.

A large fan on each end or top and bottom however with about three quarter inch away from barrier. This will move air through and orb styles you may determine , if they'll stand up like Cheerios and allow air to flow through wonderful too. 12mm total clearance so effective diameter I'd call it at about 3/16" max..

Try this:

http://www.benchtest.com/heat_pipe1.html

http://www.coolingzone.com

Thinking of a simple, easy to repair, easy to replace, water-cooled solution, is 2 inch diameter thin-wall copper tube easy to come by in most places? Is it malleable enough to form it into roughly 12mm thick hollow rectangular plates that could be placed in between the cells? Each end could be soldered closed and then an inlet and outlet added for water to be pumped through. You could place one at the bottom of each cell row also.

Now that is an elegant solution! Too bad I can only vote once for a GA.

Aavid did not have anything listed that was a close fit (12 mm plate and 16cm X 16cm ) so I will have to try phoning during business hours. And the hunt goes on now I know what to look for.

Getting the heat out from in between the cells is the big problem. Lets hope the solution is not too expensive.

Maybe the epoxy tube and plate could become the less expensive and heat pipes becomes the more elegant high tech solution. I like it. THANKS

servant74,

Sorry for not reading your posting before posting mine.

Here's a GA

Capri

Why not just stick an auto air-conditioning unit onto the engine and fan force the air over the battery bank?

Or use the exhaust of the engine to pressurize the coolant?

An old propane fridge has all the parts and doesn't require that much of a flame to keep things cool. There's also the old fridges that ran off kerosene. Hell, man.........must be a load of those in your neck of the woods....chuckle chuckle........

Well if you saw where the batt compartment was in relation to the engine you would realize why not. Not to mention which, I already hung a 160 amp 24V alternator in the only place the auto air con would fit.

As for the propane fridge deal, the client's wife has a phobia about propane on board. And how would I ever convince anyone it was ABYC compliant.

I even questioned if it was somehow possible to run an extra duct from the existing air con. Answer was no! not without running a duct through middle of bed and across the walkway.

The heat pipe is #1 fo relegance and if I can find a thermal conductive epoxy that would likely be solution #2.

Elnav, I am surprised that all the knowledgeable friends here are unaware of heat pipe technology. Heat pipe is the best heat transporting device and is totally passive. It is sealed container in which a liquid is filled under vacuum. Utilizing the latent heat of evaporation, large amounts of heat can be transported from one end of heat pipe to its other end. It does not require any energy for operation and works on the energy it transports. Milo made a mention of Thermosiphon but sadly could not elaborate it.

What I am trying to suggest that you may use a heat pipe based heat sink where one end of heat pipe (called evaporator) is embedded in the 12mm plate you have been suggesting and the other end is brought out in to the atmosphere and has fins mounted to increase the dissipating area. A forced cooling or a natural cooling of fins can be considered based on options available. You mentioned the ambient temp as 32 degC. Typically the heat pipe heat sink can provide a DeltaT in the range of 5 to 8 degC. So there is a possibility of achieving 40 degC on the plate. Care should be taken to ensure that the plate itself receives all the heat then rest can be left to the system to handle. One data missing is the amount of heat that is to handled.

Suggest you visit www.capri.co.in for more information.

Johnson

Capri. Thanks for the call out.

Somehow I did not understand that this was for a boat. I thought it was for batteries in a very hot terrestrial setting. So my thermosiphon idea was to run a water antifreeze mixture BACKWARDS through a flat plate collector by allowing the thermosiphon to reverse the flow at night to radiate heat out to night sky. given sufficient reservoir size with the batteries adjacent and the "compartment" sufficiently insulated, I thought that this arrangement could handle the heat.

I saw the water antifreeze misture as a thermal flywheel help moderate temperature. And no parasitic load for pumps etc.

I am properly embarassed for not thinking of heat pipes, but had no idea of how to get sufficient delta T as I saw the problem. You and servant of course, crushed the ball out of the park.

great contributions!

milo

Some very useful suggestions have been made. A few can be applied to the present situation. Some of them may possibly be applied to new future situations but others simply would not be feasible given the financial constraints of the situation. First of all, recreational boat building is always more constrained by cost than commercial vessel building. Commercial vessels typically have a means of cost recovery resulting from being put to work. Technical improvements can be assessed in terms of time it takes to recover the additional expense of making the improvenent (ROE) Recreational boats are built to satisfy a whim, a dream or just to meet a market demand (percieved or real) I am usually hired to devise an electrical system because the prospective owner sees a deficiency in the standard production design, or to find a solution to an existing problem discovered while the owner is using the boat. but such improvements are often opposed by the builder. In the case of the over heated battery, its a case of the builder saying too bad, not our problem. We did our best. If it's too hot; go cruise in Alaska. When its time to select batteries, its often a case of using whatever is available or face prohibitive freight costs and in some cases, punitive tariffs levied against foreign imports to protect local industry. As I mentioned before, in recreational boats placement of equipment often follow illogical rules. convenience and appearance is what sells boats. If the wife is not happy her veto can often scuttle a purchase decision. A great many boats are sold due to appealing to the wife's wishes rather than because the husband likes the engineering design. The end result is that hotel service equipment is often crammed into odd nooks and crannies wherever they physically fit, not because this is the best engineering design. This the kind of background leading to such decisions as placing batteries under the bed in the aft stateroom. As to the kind of battery, well it was cheapest to buy from the battery factory in town rather than buy a brand made half a world away. And size of battery bank is dictated by how long the owner demands to run from inverter rather than from a genset. Cost is always a consideration. Unlike with a commercial craft, a recreational boat seldom has any way to recoup the initial expenditure. Builders always opt for the cheapest solution not the best solution. Some buyers, having been burned by cheap design in the past are willing to spend more to get an improved boat but they usually have finite limits of how much money they have available to spend. And lastly, boat building has also been shifted to lowest wage countries. the result is much of the yard labor force is very limited in skill sets. they can cope with limited repetetive tasks but cannot always make that intuitive jump involved when faced with unknown new technology. Assembly work involving specialized tools and techniques is restricted to the absolute minimum required for standard tasks. Ask them to do something new and chances are they have no knowledge of or access to these new tools and techniques. Plus there would be a learning curve. Therefore it gets rejected.

http://www.timtronics.com/epoxy.htm

Some thermally conductive epoxies here. Maybe a good idea to check reaction of polystyrene with battery case.

http://www.dowcorning.com/content/etronics/etronicswet/etronics_wet_encov.asp

silicones

Did Tupperware build the boat?

Let me clarify a misconception. Tublular battery can take much higher rate of charge than AGM Flat plate Batteries. You have mentioned other way.

Chaging at Factory for tubular cells are now being increasingly done by chilled acid circulation. But it is not possible to do in service.

FLT batteries can be charged in 5 hrs with Constatnt current and Constatnt Voltage programme. If you have Cells loose, best way can be to charge them in water tanks ,with water being circulated by cooling tower. Chilled water of 12 degree can be still better. As long as electrolyte temperature is kept below 55degree C. you can pump in as much current as possible in tubular batteries.

Other option can be to charge them in AC rooms. But less effect than in water bath.

How did old fashoioned submarines cool their batteries they must have charged at high rates???

I am thinking the same as travelengineer. As someone who sails as a hobby, they make a water source heat pump for boats. It pumps in sea water into a set of coils and blows air across it, then pumps it back into the sea.

Thats how they air condition boats in the tropics.

Judging by your user name we must look alike. <VBG> I have heard of this technique but all the comments I have heard concerning comparison with that and direct expansion or chilled water systems suggest it is not as effective. Remember also that recreational boats tend to be shallow draft under five feet ( at least for power boats) so they are floating in the hot surface layers. Its true that once you get below 10 feet the water temperature decreases dramatically. For a hull with draft deeper than 10 feet this is a viable solution. For a hull with only 4 feet of draft, the extra extensions needed to get below 10 feet is more trouble than its worth. and if you are anchored in six feet of water this approach is simply not practical. The retired sub commander and I discussed this very fact. He has actually considered running pipes along the very bottom of his hull in an effort to try this system. But in the end his wife won out. She wants it COOL. so we designed for direct expansion air conditioning.

Old or new, doesn't really matter. Submarine battery banks are typically placed in the bottom of the hull. At that depth the hull is located deep enough in the water and ambient temps are not as hot. In addition, submarine batteries are specially constructed to include air tubes leading to the bottom of the case. Cold air is bubbled through the electrolyte. This helps cooling as well as destratification of the electrolyte. One of my clients is a retired sub commander and we discussed this issue at lenght. Unlike most boats; his boat is being designed to first meet good engineering design requirements. We do not expect to have a hot battery issue on his boat. As an aside, submarine batteries are series connected for much higher voltages. They still did not exceed the conservative charge rate of around C/4 But charging still involved many hours of surface running to recharge. In todays world, consumers are not willing to put up with 8- 10 hours of charge time. They want to recharge a house bank in two or at most 3 hours when at anchor.

LOTS of air! A typical submarine battery compartment gets a complete air change every 10-15 seconds when charging. Even so, the engineering space on a diesel boat got wickedly hot during charging. 45-50 C was common, higher in the tropics.

The submarine solution won't work for elnav; it's big, noisy and expensive.

I think I would be inclined to use a plate type cooler, they are commercially available and are popular for transmission coolers. In fact the one that I added to my motor home transmission cooling appears to be about the ideal size to fit between individual batteries.

You can google the details, they are a highly efficient compact size cooler. I have used them in lube oil systems and reduced the size of tube type coolers by at least 50%.

How about water bath cooling?

That suggestion has consistently been rejected by every boater I ever suggested it to. Adding a water bath to a battery compartment is counter intuitive to just about every sailor I spoke to. You simply do not mix water and electricity. Not to mention which adding such a large quantity of water in the aft end of a bot doesn't help the trim any.

You can google the details, they are a highly efficient compact size cooler. I have used them in lube oil systems and reduced the size of tube type coolers by at least 50%. REPLY Please provide link to website. I have used oil coolers in the past but never seen one as thin as 1/2 inch,. Second thought. Oil coolers typically pump hot fluid into an air cooled radiating surface. High delta T involved. Here we have low delta T so much more surface involved to transfer same BTU.

I'd check with NASA. They deal with weird situations all the time. They use batteries for everything you can imagine

Oh Brotherrrrrrrrr! Just a little suggestion here will be having an strong exhaust and cooling system that may be energized by a solar package and or wind power together with a regenerative energy unit in order to be on the sustainable green compliance zone. Also will be nice to have some 'HeatSink' with 'Fins' material around such batteries in order to help out transfer it. You have the technology here with the masters at CR-4 TechnoMall,absolutetly. Good Overtime Job Definetely You Got It!

HeatSinkTech,

MC

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	Transmission Oil Cooler Product Line: Cool Cab H. D. Air Condition Message from Store: Part Not Found Select To Compare	CCC 982805	List Cost Unit : : : 0.00 0.00 Each	0

1 2 3 4 5 Next 10 25 50 Items per page Part Number Quantity Pricing ( ??) On Hand Transmission Oil Cooler - Rapid Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 17511 List Cost Unit : : : 142.45 114.39 Each 0 Transmission Oil Cooler - Rapid Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 18443 List Cost Unit : : : 506.99 419.39 Pkg(s) 0 Transmission Oil Cooler - Rapid Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 17508 List Cost Unit : : : 86.14 67.99 Each 0 Transmission Oil Cooler - Rapid Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 17510 List Cost Unit : : : 128.01 104.39 Each 0 Transmission Oil Cooler - Rapid Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 17509 List Cost Unit : : : 106.81 84.69 Each 0 Transmission Oil Cooler - Ultra Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 14819 List Cost Unit : : : 67.78 53.69 Each 0 Transmission Oil Cooler - Ultra Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 18438 List Cost Unit : : : 163.31 129.39 Each 0 Transmission Oil Cooler - Ultra Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 14822 List Cost Unit : : : 67.69 53.69 Each 1 Transmission Oil Cooler - Ultra Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 18442 List Cost Unit : : : 331.54 274.39 Pkg(s) 0 Transmission Oil Cooler - Ultra Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 14823 List Cost Unit : : : 82.10 64.99 Each 1 Transmission Oil Cooler - Ultra Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 14818 List Cost Unit : : : 46.92 36.99 Each 0 Transmission Oil Cooler - Ultra Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 14810 List Cost Unit : : : 96.38 75.99 Each 1 Transmission Oil Cooler - Ultra Cool Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 18441 List Cost Unit : : : 277.09 229.39 Pkg(s) 0 Image Not Available Transmission Oil Cooler Product Line: Altrom Select To Compare ATM 0089970482 List Cost Unit : : : 19.60 12.39 Each 0 Transmission Oil Cooler Product Line: Altrom Select To Compare ATM 096409061E List Cost Unit : : : 315.70 193.99 Each 0 Transmission Oil Cooler Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 18437 List Cost Unit : : : 142.89 114.39 Each 0 Transmission Oil Cooler Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 18439 List Cost Unit : : : 105.51 83.69 Each 0 Transmission Oil Cooler Product Line: NAPA Automatic Transmission Parts Select To Compare ATP 18436 List Cost Unit : : : 124.94 98.69 Each 0

Above are some of the transmission coolers available from the NAPA line. There are many mote products like this available on the market. I would suggest finding ones with acceptable sizing, connecting the rows in series, then joining each row together in parallel before using an electric water pump that would run when the charger runs. Some experiments with suction and discharge locations to prevent bringing the heated water back in, as well as flow rates could work without major expenses, and still provide for varying installations. Good luck.

Hello Bob c The listed products are all familiar to me since I have used them. However none of them are suited for a reverse flow of heat. Thin fins do not pick up heat as well as they dissipate it. Not when the only point of contact is the thin edge of the fins. With air flow as the heat removal media, the air is in full contact with the entire fin. The technical problem lies in picking up the heat from the battery core. Very little room and a need to deal with the limitation of the battery cases. The plate exchanges typically have large pipe inlets and outlets at right angle to the plate orientation. This makes it difficult to slide the entire plate into a narrow 1/2 in slot. I have yet to see a plate exchanger with both inlet and outlets at one end and oriented with the liquid piping along the same axix as the plate lenght. Typically these are at right angles to plate surface. Once the heat is removed from the battery vicinity then several options are available to dissipate it.

At the moments heat pipes sdoes look like the best option.

Heat pipes do look like a great way to remove heat, but how do you transfer the battery case heat to the heat pipes?

One of the links provided for the heat pipe theory showed how a heat pipe was fabricated and inserted into solid heat sink blocks. I'm thinking these solid plates of copper or aluminum measuring 16" X 16" and 12mm thick being in direct contact with the battery plastic case would draw enough heat away. Coating with a thermal compound would also help. On the other end similar sized ( area fins or similar) heat dissipators would then transfer the heat to some medium that moves the heat away entirely from the vicinity of the battery. The limitations are as follows. Whatever system is used must allow easy and convenient removal and replacement of individual batery cells. without resorting to spwecial tools and equipment. In other words it cannot be epoxied to the battery case nor be something requiring replacing a refrigerant. I just got confirmation that the builder did not allow extra room between the outer wall of the "battery storage cabinet and the individual cells cases. So at max we have 12mm all round. At present the battery cases are kept apart with wooden spacers. There is an inlet hole cut into their cabinet wall but the case is only 12mm inside this so any fan blowing into or sucking air out of the battery compartment is simply spinning the fan blades and not moving any air. This inner battery compartment is further contained inside another enclosure of plywood, which forms the cabinety and pedestal under the master bedroom double bed. The hul is steel but has been sprayed with 3" of foam. Then an inner liner of plywood has been placed on top. In other words you cannot reach the outer hull except b ytotally dismantling the entire sleeping stateroom. The owner is now living aboard and the wife is NOT amused. Dismantling the bedroom is NOT an option at this time. The air inlet consist of one 1-1/4" diameter hole plus 10 feet of flexible corrugated hose. 10 feet of smooth bore duct would be bad enough for resistance but corrugated hose is way too much flow resistance Installing a 4" diameter 250 CFM blower is useless unless a larger duct diameter is also provided. The area around the battery box is filled with drawers since the double width bed is way bigger than the battery box itself. The existing 1-1/4" diameter duct would be enough room to get a couple of 1/2" or maybe even 3/4" water hoses into and back out from the battery box. The circulation pump for cooling water could be placed someplace else. The heat pipes only has to pull heat from the middle of the stack to a pipe manifold wher the heat then transfers into the water. Perhaps not the most elegant approach, but it does look like it would work and it may even be possible for the owner to do himself. Mind you he may not be able to locate suitable material until he reaches Singapore. The saving grace being; he is a hot rodder from way back; so is able to think with his hands and with tools and is able to improvise. Something that is sadly lacking in the boat builder yard crew.

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Very soft thermal conductive gel

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The size of ceramic orbs is less than 1/16th and a thermal conductive gel may help transfer heat from the battery casing to a heat pipe.

If well insulated from the space the hull itself is an efficient heat sink at the depth below the water line you indicated previously.

I'm a little slow an catching up is my mod us operandi

Have you considered ground water cooling or burying the batteries 10-12 feet below the tropical heat to reduce ambient temp while charging? Just a thought...

The propulsion system on the boat is not sufficient to drag the battery cases accross the ground.

Hit it with a hammer hard enough, so the casing breaks and the hot air can escape :D

The more I think about your problem with the space limitation and your desire to stick with something cheap and available, have you given any thought to putting some type of a bladder between the batteries with an inlet and outlet of raw water in parallel configuration?

Something a little more sophisticated than a modified douche bag but on that order. I am not joking the illustration is just the first to come to mind.

You have really pissed me off now. You want to send a bunch of douche bags on some ocean cruises, while I am stuck here at work.

The cooling properties do seem to have some merit though. Turn on the pump when charging the batteries, let the douche bags fill, circulate and drain from a hight above the batteries. That way the bags would be empty for easy battery replacement except when being charged.

That is essentially where I started. Because the batteries must be clamped or strapped in to keep them in place, I was thinking in terms of a rigid "bag" or container which I called a plate filled with water tubes for circulation. I figured the "plates" or whatever would be rigid enough to stand up to being squeezed tight between the batteries without crushing. It was the physical construction of these containers sandwiched in between the battery cases that prompted the questions.

Its easy to cut some thin aluminum plates to size. It is also easy to lay a zig zag or serpentine coil of aluminum tubing in place. What is not so easy is 'effective' heat transfer from outer surface of plate to the liquid inside the tube. Try to visualize a round tube sitting on a flat plate. There is only a tiny point of contact between tube and plate. I wanted to increase the contact area by filling in with a fillet of heat conducting material. TIG welding is one option but requires a welder and some skill working in thin plate and small tubing. Not to mention which, care is required to avoid heat distortion and buckling of the this flat plate. Doing so would defeat the purpose of th eproject. Hence the idea of a heat conducting epoxy. Something that could be done by owner in the field.

How about if you redesign the containment system so that the top and bottom are framed by aluminum angle leaving the sides completely open, make up aluminum hollow squares to fit the void between batteries in the hollow portion of the squares weld in maybe four or five division plates, reversing flow through the squares, weld in inlet and outlet fittings and draw the whole mess up as tightly as you desire. The separation squares will probably be the strongest parts of the system.

The most logical source of cooling on a boat is the raw water. all boats that I know of have a source of raw water, the problem is that in any cooling scheme that you don't use air as the cooling medium is going to have problems with fouling and corrosion. If you kept the flow path through the squares as open as possible the problem should be long term in appearing.

In the first place I am not the builder. Nor do I have any influence over how and what the builder does. While I can recommend something; it remains up to the owner if they can afford the proposed changes or if it practical and feasible to implement the recommendations. And then the builder would have to be convinced to do it. Any such work would disrupt their production schedule. They bring in a crane to drop boats into the water. Lastly, the owner has admitted a reluctance to punch yet another hole in the hull to let in more water. Plumbing systems do spring leaks. Not to mention which; adding another thru hull fitting would involve lifting the hull out of the water in order to add the thru hull fitting. Considering a haul-out facility is a long long way from where the boat is presently located this may not be feasible at this time. Something else to consider. A water tight framework would by definition be solid and not removable. That in turn requires the batteries to be lifted up over and then lowered again. It would require some careful engineering. The yard is not willing to expend any time figuring out such a structure. They have already demonstrated they lack such design skills.

At face value this method may seem fraught with problems but there is one approach not yet vented; pun intended. It is by way of cycling the acid through a chilling medium as problematic as it may seem, it is not that way at all. What do you think...

Bwire, are you forgetting these are AGM Starved electrolyte type sealed batteries.

Submarines do in fact cool the electrolyte by circulating cooling air through the inside of liquid electrolyte but it requires special construction of the case at time of manufacturer.

Look at the heating systems in floors. Place pegs or stoppers welded (or even better drill and bolt) between two plates to hold the tubes in place and use some form of heat sink paste around the tube to make a solid contact between the copper tubing and the plate.

I would use a junction so each plate has coolant straight from the radiator and not run coolant through multiple plates.

12mm makes me thing of water cooling plates for hard drives. They have a small thickness and should be easy enough to fit two (or ten) on the side of a battery this means more tubes though.

You can always use baby oil or some other kind of mineral oil. Flood the compartment add a little pump or pumps for circulation and a radiator or radiators… Add a little spacer frame to hold the batteries in place while still allowing circulation. Heck, why not make a sealed box which hold the batteries from bottom and make a water tight seal around the top to provide easy access and keep the batteries firmly in place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtufuXLvOok

Anyways… more solutions for this type of problem then you can mention, just think outside the box and look at other cooling options for small spaces. The hardest part will be finding space for a radiator and pump.

Heck, why not make a sealed box which hold the batteries from bottom and make a water tight seal around the top to provide easy access and keep the batteries firmly in place.

Obviously this box would have a lid which fits tightly allowing you to change the batteries.

Vortex Coolers are very expensive to operator due to cost of compressed air. They take about 29 kW of power for one ton of cooling compared to 1.6 kW for an A/C unit designed to cool electrical enclosues.