What volume of water is there in your loop?

[JonJ678]

Thinking about reservoirs, and wondered what other people do. I have a very little one, but the loop holds about a litre and a half anyway. One loop here.

Roughly (or precisely would be good too ) what volume of coolant do you have in your computer?

edit: should have listed things in the loop, much like the replies. This is a 240 and two 120 feser radiators, ddc reservoir top and more tubing than is strictly needed.

 

[JonJ678]

Id expect less water to accelerate faster but stabilise at very close to the same flow rate. Doubt that this is an argument for small volumes of water. There might be something in avoiding reservoirs in that a body of stationary water with a jet flowing through it will exert drag on the jet. I'm also interested in fornowagain's thoughts on this.

Reason for question is assuming thermal equilibrium, greater mass of water means greater system heat capacity. I think this is a good thing, since processors don't tend to run flat out all the time. The delay in temperature change with load will mean the maximum temperature reached is lower.

Alternatively, with enough water, one might be able to turn the fans off for the duration of a film.

Do please keep the answers coming though

 

[JonJ678]

Useful equations once again, thank you. I think you missed the point slightly though, or at least missed my point.

I'm with you on mass of water affecting time to equilibrium in the obvious way, and on radiated heat from the reservoir being potentially significant. Say, if the reservoir is large and finned or hanging out the window in winter.

I'm also in agreement regarding flow rate, as I think Paul is. However, what effect does a reservoir of various sizes have on flow rate?

In a closed loop, as long as the peripheral resistance is low enough, I'd expect the pump to start the water moving slowly then swiftly accelerate it up to the equilibrium mass flow rate. However, if you put say a swimming pool partway down the loop, the water entering the pump is essentially stationary and that returning to the pool loses all its kinetic energy to the damping effect of the pool.

Is it reasonable then that any reservoir will impose resistance to flow, and larger/worse designed ones will have a bigger effect? The xspc reservoir top (laing ddc) for example has a tube running through the centre aiming the incoming water at the pump inlet. This reduces the drag from the reservoir liquid, and perhaps explains the measurable performance increase over separate reservoirs and tops.


Shadowscotland is of the opinion that since pressure in the reservoir is uniform, as long as it is full it makes no difference to flow rate. However that a bubble will reduce flow rate, hence uses a completely full reservoir. Whereas I'm working on the basis that when spraying a hose into a swimming pool, you can feel the pressure from the hose a short distance below the surface but it swiftly disappears with depth, and pumps are likely to perform better when fed with flowing water than when being forced to accelerate it continually.

I would be interested in peoples views on this, and hope I have expressed myself clearly enough. This looks offtopic I know, but at least its my thread I'm derailing

 

[JonJ678]

Reassured to hear it, thank you. Sad to say I'm not doing well at the calculative side of things, but shall improve with time. For now I'm happy knowing I was on the right track.

@pastymuncher, good effort on the exterior radiator. Do you hit issues when summer is hot or winter below ambient? Unsure when feser freezes