Only radiator in mineral oil?

[Brendan Rosa]

I was looking at videos of fully-immersed systems in mineral oil and had a better idea. It would be to use the mineral oil only for the liquid-cooling radiator.

So essentially you'd have a water-cooling system but instead of having the radiator just open in the air making tons of noise, is it possible to ONLY immerse the radiator in the mineral oil leaving the rest of the system normal (not in mineral oil)?

EDIT: The fans will be attached to the radiator and will be rotating in the mineral oil.

 

[ingtar33]

I was looking at videos of fully-immersed systems in mineral oil and had a better idea. It would be to use the mineral oil only for the liquid-cooling radiator.

So essentially you'd have a water-cooling system but instead of having the radiator just open in the air making tons of noise, is it possible to ONLY immerse the radiator in the mineral oil leaving the rest of the system normal (not in mineral oil)?

well, depends on the size of the bucket of oil. understand why mineral oil is such a good cooler.
1)it's thermally conductive
2)it requires a LOT of energy to warm up per unit of liquid (in comparison to water)

The problem with mineral oil is it doesn't give up it's heat very well. unlike water it won't cool down fast... so you need a lot of oil with a lot of surface area to keep the oil cool, or inside of a day or so, your reservoir will be like 70C-90C, and as you know a water cooler is only as good as it's surrounding temps.

A big enough reservoir, with a lot of surface area (think a big cube or copper or a mineral oil reservoir with a pump and series of heatsinks) can work. just make sure you have a way to dissipate the heat energy.

 

[freshbakd]

One word MESS. Keep in mind if you plunge those components in that oil count on using oil for its entire lifetime. Think about the maintenance moving and or repairing it and after that if its worth it proceed....And everything but hdd and optical drives go in mobo and all. If you just put the rad in oil you would have to use a huge rad huuuuge to transfer that kind heat

 

[unksol]

Mineral oil is NOT a good thermal conductor when compared to water. And if you're dumping the heat into the tank its the same as filling the PC. The ONLY way that would work is if you had a large metal tank with large surface area. And circulated the coolant... Basically all you'd being doing is putting your radiator inside another radiator large enough to not need a fan. Mineral oil isn't magic. The heat still HAS to get.to the air.

 

[ingtar33]

yeah.. there is the consideration a normal rad won't work. there is an ionic atraction when a fluid comes into contact with a solid. part of the fluid sticks to the surface and doesn't move. you get this effect with air, that's why you use a fan.

Oil is far more dense then air. the oil inbetween the fins will not move, you'll have no circulation, the oil around the rad will superheat and the water in the cooler won't cool down.

Didn't think about that problem. you'd need a different radiator. a larger one with wider placed fins, something designed for passive air cooling maybe.

 

[USAFRet]

Ok...so you put the rad in a tank of oil or water. How do you plan to get the heat out of that?

 

[icraft]

It's up to you if it's worth it, but I've seen some pretty crazy setups. One guy had his h100 pumping mineral oil into a 2mx2mx2m (8 sq meter)tank. He then took 5 passive cpu coolers, partially submerged them in the tank and pointed a 300CFM fan at them (plugged into the wall). Idle of 17, load of 45. He also had 2 fish tank pumps circulating the oil.

 

[USAFRet]

See my sig.....-->

Identify the problem:
Loud fans on the radiator

Solution:
Get quieter fans

 

[freshbakd]

O sorry you would have to still put fans on it they work fine in oil. But you would have to have a very large tank to piut it in i think a lot of the people that do it end up running the through a rad too though...not my field of expertise but i hope it helps

 

[manofchalk]

Ok...so you put the rad in a tank of oil or water. How do you plan to get the heat out of that?

This
Mineral oil just by virtue of being mineral oil wont cool your PC. Once the heat is in there, you have to get rid of it unless you want your radiator running in a liquid that's perpetually getting hotter.
Doing this would actually give you worse performance than just plain using the radiator in the air. Mineral oil has worse thermal conductivity than air does (hence why it is so slow to heat up, and conversely, cool down) and the flow rate through the radiator would be far slower than air would.

Theres a reason why with mineral oil rigs, often they have the radiator come out of the oil to dissipate heat. That, or there is such a large volume of oil that it passively losing its heat just by convection.