Has Argon Ever Been Used to Cool a Motor?

if your "coolant" is removing the same amount of heat as a traditional system I fail to see the impact on missions, please elaborate

I'm not trying to get emissions down any lower, but water cooling does a better job of keeping emissions under control than (conventional) air cooling.

But this suggestion is more along the lines of 'in-block' air cooling - just not air. So, like a low tech version of a inert gas cooled reactor, this would use a heavy inert gas but only under a small amount of pressure (compared to nuclear system pressures).

I should explain I'm not really suggesting that it's something I will be commissioning personally - more it's just a question I thought of asking whilst mulling over related stuff, and it seemed like a fun question!

So normal air cooling - like a finned thumper bike engine, for example - has to compromise more in other ways (say peak power) to meet emissions. - ie, there's something about water cooling (is it the better evening out of hotspots? is it other factors?) that means that water (well, coolant) is always the better option (for a bit more price/complexity).

But has there been any effort to look at pressurised gas as a coolant in this way? Could we extract more useful heat from this resource if it were practical?

So where will the compressed argon be transferring heat to other than a radiator or other such similar device that has to now be built heavier and at a higher cost than what a normal radiator cost to produce.

Also what is the point of having a moderately compressed gas that is going to be difficult to contain plus recharge working where ordinary water can be used with no pressure at all?

As far as for emissions related thats more of a scam excuse than anything for making things cost more burn more fuel work less efficiently and take more money out of our pockets.

I don't know of one single tree hugger emission backer that can understands the science behind the supposed emission system operations let alone can explain how burning more fuel less efficiently reduces anything on the net returns at the end.

The price of lower poisonous emissions, so the story goes, comes at the cost of fuel efficiency (and hence CO2) - primary, this is because you need plenty of leftover heat to get that mini chemical processing plant in your tailpipe to stay lit.

Or is this all, (black) smoke and mirrors?

I suppose argon might work somewhat to cool a motor,an engine (which is what I beleive you meant) on the other hand is a different story.

Briefly,and as has been said, consider 'molecular density' of the gaseous argon and the liquid water.

On another take, look up 'refrigeration cycle' and see what is being done with gasses for cooling.

HTH

Jay

Okay; thanks. It seems obvious now really.

Especially the bit about the gas in the windows and all that!

I got a bit carried away with the idea that because a gas is compressible it would make a useful heat carrier if you wanted to transfer the heat rejected at a higher temperature - clearly it takes some extra energy to compress that gas but...

Thank you Ken.

Hydrogen and helium are very good heat conductors, but expensive and leak easily. They were used in barretters to control the temperature of an iron wire with variable current flowing and maintain constant voltage drop.

Sulphur Hexafluoride

When working on Joule-Thomson coolers we found that Argon was the fastest cooling refrigerant. Perhaps not the lowest temperature, but fastest acting. The fact that it is used to insulate windows is not related to its properties as a refrigerant.

The fact that it is used to insulate windows is not related to its properties as a refrigerant.

But the properties than make it a good insulator make it a poor coolant. The properties that make a gas a good refrigerant do not make it a good coolant -- refrigeration and engine cooling are two very different processes.

Water has an unusually high volumetric heat capacity, which, along with its high conductivity, makes it an excellent coolant (as the term is used with IC engines). In fact, most engines for land use are ultimately air cooled, with the water serving as a means for getting heat from the engine to the radiator, which is air cooled. Adding a refrigeration system to cool the water would increase complexity and cost dramatically.

Argon's thermal conductivity is marginally better then just air. The property that makes it better in an IGU(insulated glass unit) is it's heavier then the air. Which slows down the cyclic transfer of heat. Of the warm gas raising on the heated side and the colder gas falling on the cold side. The benefits of which is only valuable in northern climates. Where the temperature difference inside a home to out is the greatest during the winter months. The rest of the IGU's are being filled to meet energy star standards or government standards whether they have a economic value to the consumer or not.

In the semiconductor industry I worked with an electric motor that was argon cooled. The argon was then water cooled run thru a filter and used again. It worked quite well. Argon is a good carrier of heat. There are many chemical systems that use argon to pull heat from the reaction chamber or use argon in the process to retain heat.