[Beowulf] Innovative liquid cooling

[Hearns, John]

> For future reference, I just looked up these thermal conductivities:

> Air : 0.024 W/m-k (at 298K)
> Water:  0.58 W/m-k (at 300K)
> Mineral oil: 0.162 W/m-k
> 3M Novec 7000:  0.075 W/m-k

Alcohol:    0.171 W/m-k



> Using this numbers,

> Water is 24x better than air
> Mineral oil is 6.75x better than air
> 3M Novec 7000 is only 3.125x better

Malt whisky is 7 times better than air.





> What is clearly much better than the other alternatives for heat 
> transfer. If only it wasn't conductive, and corrosive (rust, anyone?)

No. Absolutely not.
What is clearly much better is that HPC staff be provided with a steady supply of malt whisky for cooling,
complete with a drain tap with which we can draw off frequent samples for analysis.
For the finest thermal conductivity, this should of course be combined with a supply of chilled water from Scottish mountain streams.

Slainte.


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