[Beowulf] 96 cores in silent and small enclosure

[Lux, Jim (337C)]

> For a boiling system like Jim Lux brought up, it's very unsafe, since
> odds are good it will come into contact with something that will produce
> dissolved ions in it and make it electrically conductive.
> 

When they use boilers for cooling power vacuum tubes, they don't worry about the conductivity (as much), because they deal with the voltage issues in other ways.

The old Eimac "Care and Feeding of Power Grid Tubes" book talks about this and has pictures as well. As I recall, it's online at CPI (what Eimac had become part of, long after they were part of Varian)

For lower voltage gear, various halogenated hydrocarbons are used (because you typically want something that boils at a temperature well below 100C... 40-50C is nice).  They're all insulators, so from that standpoint it's easier to use.


And I suppose we should also talk about "heat pipes" which come in a variety of forms, some of which use evaporation/condensation for transport (others use density gradients).