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dyno cooling tower 1

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Yves40

Automotive
Nov 20, 2010
37
Hello,

I have an old dyno here that I could like to use to tune my FI.
I need to circulate about 8 M3 of water per hour and cool the water from 60 °C-20°C.

Can someone supply me some data regarding the kind of airflow I would need to get the water cooled down in the tower ? What type of fan ?

What would be the best design tower to use. I don't want it to get to big either.

Thanks
 
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You didn't mention where 'here' is, and it makes a difference to a cooling tower. E.g. in hot and humid New Orleans, they basically don't work.

You could use an array of radiators.

Or a pair of 8m3 tanks, which would let you run for an hour, just pumping from one to the other, then let the water cool while you're out buying replacement parts.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
This is Belgium.

I have space and budget constraints to consider, which is why i can't place large tanks or a series of rads. Regarding space and cost, i would think a self built cooling tower would be ideal..
 
I know someone who installed a chassis dyno in his garage, but used it infrequently enough that using city water once-through was the most cost effective method.

The reason it was infrequent, of course, is that his neighbors didn't much like him tuning engines at midnight.

How much tank size do you have, and how long do you expect to tune per session?
 
In some countries using municipal water supply or town water for this purpose is illegal, however the law is sometime broken for very occasional use. I cannot advise you to break a law here.

As Mike said, evaporative cooling towers efficiency varies hugely with climate. I would expect that in Belgium that they work reasonably well. Local suppliers should be your best advisers. This is probably the wrong forum to ask this question.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &
for site rules
 
If was doing this myself, I might just get a few local cooling tower suppliers to quote on the job, and then look at whatever it was they suggested was required.

Even being more devious and sneaky, I might even sniff out the building demolition people, and see if there is some office block being demolished somewhere nearby with a likely cooling tower on the roof.

A few cartons of beer to the site supervisor and his merry demolition crew might just score you a whole entire cooling tower for free.
These things are expensive to buy new, but have zero scrap value.
 
I wonder how a couple of car/truck radiators ( from applications totalling a few X test engine capacity )with integral electric fans would do.
 
I think I'm going to use groundwater by 2 pumps of each 80 l/min dumping into 2 1000 liter containers and use the big dyno supply pump from there. Then I will need a forth pump to pump the drain water to the sewers. A lot of hassle but right know that's the only way to get around it.

I hope that the bored well I have is ample enough to supple a 160 l/min water.
 
What about taking an old chest-type freezer, lining it with a plastic sheet, and letting it run for a few days to freeze up solid?

You could circulate your dyno coolant through pipes which you thoughtfully inserted before it froze up. Obviously, the circulating tubes would need to be empty until you were ready to introduce the circulating water.

It would seem that such an approach should give you a few hours play time until like Mike pointed out, it would be time to run out for new parts.
 
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