Radiator

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This article is about radiators in automobiles, buildings, and electronics. For other
uses, see Radiator (disambiguation).
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Water-air convective cooling radiator, made from aluminum, from a 21st century car.

Radiators are heat exchangers used to transfer thermal energy from one medium to

another for the purpose of cooling and heating. The majority of radiators are
constructed to function in cars, buildings, and electronics.[citation needed]
A radiator is always a source of heat to its environment, although this may be for
either the purpose of heating this environment, or for cooling the fluid
or coolant supplied to it, as for automotive engine cooling and HVAC dry cooling
towers. Despite the name, most radiators transfer the bulk of their heat
via convection instead of thermal radiation.[citation needed]

Contents

 1History
 2Radiation and convection
 3Heating
 4HVAC
 5Engine cooling
 6Electronics and computers
 7Spacecraft
 8References

History[edit]
The Roman hypocaust is an early example of a type of radiator for building space
heating. Franz San Galli, a Prussian-born Russian businessman living in St.
Petersburg, is credited with inventing the heating radiator around 1855, [1][2] having
received a radiator patent in 1857, [3] but American Joseph Nason developed a
primitive radiator in 1841[4] and received a number of U.S. patents for hot water and
steam heating.[4]

Radiation and convection[edit]

A cast iron convector radiator, central heating system in Gdańsk University of Technology, 1904

Heat transfer from a radiator occurs by all the usual mechanisms: thermal

radiation, convection into flowing air or liquid, and conduction into the air or liquid. A
radiator may even transfer heat by phase change, for example, drying a pair of
socks. In practice, the term "radiator" refers to any of a number of devices in which a
liquid circulates through exposed pipes (often with fins or other means of increasing
surface area). The term "convector" refers to a class of devices in which the source
of heat is not directly exposed.
To increase the surface area available for heat exchange with the surroundings, a
radiator will have multiple fins, in contact with the tube carrying liquid pumped
through the radiator. Air (or other exterior fluid) in contact with the fins carries off
heat. If air flow is obstructed by dirt or damage to the fins, that portion of the radiator
is ineffective at heat transfer.

Heating[edit]

A Panel Convector Radiator, typical of a standard central heating system in the UK

Main article: Radiator (heating)

Radiators are commonly used to heat buildings on the European continent. In a
radiative central heating system, hot water or sometimes steam is generated in a
central boiler and circulated by pumps through radiators within the building, where
this heat is transferred to the surroundings.

HVAC[edit]
Main article: Cooling tower
Radiators are used in dry cooling towers and closed loop cooling towers for
cooling buildings using liquid-cooled chillers for HVAC while keeping the
chiller coolant isolated from the surroundings.

Engine cooling[edit]
Car engine bay, with radiator in front

Main article: Radiator (engine cooling)

Auto radiators with a double grid of tubes: staggered grids on the left, parallel grids on the right

Radiators are used for cooling internal combustion engines, mainly in automobiles

but also in piston-engined aircraft, railway locomotives, motorcycles, stationary
generating plants and other places where heat engines are used.
To cool down the heat engine, a coolant is passed through the engine block, where it
absorbs heat from the engine. The hot coolant is then fed into the inlet tank of the
radiator (located either on the top of the radiator, or along one side), from which it is
distributed across the radiator core through tubes to another tank on the opposite
end of the radiator. As the coolant passes through the radiator tubes on its way to
the opposite tank, it transfers much of its heat to the tubes which, in turn, transfer the
heat to the fins that are lodged between each row of tubes. The fins then release the
heat to the ambient air. Fins are used to greatly increase the contact surface of the
tubes to the air, thus increasing the exchange efficiency. The cooled liquid is fed
back to the engine, and the cycle repeats. Normally, the radiator does not reduce the
temperature of the coolant back to ambient air temperature, but it is still sufficiently
cooled to keep the engine from overheating.
This coolant is usually water-based, with the addition of glycols to prevent freezing
and other additives to limit corrosion, erosion and cavitation. However, the coolant
may also be an oil. The first engines used thermosiphons to circulate the coolant;
today, however, all but the smallest engines use pumps.[citation needed]
Up to the 1980s, radiator cores were often made of copper (for fins) and brass (for
tubes, headers, and side-plates, while tanks could also be made of brass or
of plastic, often a polyamide). Starting in the 1970s, use of aluminium increased,
eventually taking over the vast majority of vehicular radiator applications. The main
inducements for aluminium are reduced weight and cost. [citation needed]
Since air has a lower heat capacity and density than liquid coolants, a fairly
large volume flow rate (relative to the coolant's) must be blown through the radiator
core to capture the heat from the coolant. Radiators often have one or more fans that
blow air through the radiator. To save fan power consumption in vehicles, radiators
are often behind the grille at the front end of a vehicle. Ram air can give a portion or
all of the necessary cooling air flow when the coolant temperature remains below the
system's designed maximum temperature, and the fan remains disengaged. [citation needed]

Electronics and computers[edit]

Main article: Heat sink

A passive heatsink on a motherboard

As electronic devices become smaller, the problem of dispersing waste

heat becomes more difficult. Tiny radiators known as heat sinks are used to convey
heat from the electronic components into a cooling air stream. Heatsinks do not use
water, rather they conduct the heat from the source. High-performance heat sinks
have copper to conduct better. Heat is transferred to the air by conduction and
convection; a relatively small proportion of heat is transferred by radiation owing to
the low temperature of semiconductor devices compared to their surroundings.
Radiators are also used in liquid cooling loops for rejecting heat.

Spacecraft[edit]
See also: Spacecraft thermal control
Radiators are found as components of some spacecraft. These radiators work by
radiating heat energy away as light (generally infrared given the temperatures at
which spacecraft try to operate) because in the vacuum of space neither convection
 nor conduction can work to transfer heat away. On the International Space Station,
these can be seen clearly as large white panels attached to the main truss. They can
be found on both manned and unmanned craft. [5]

References[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has
media related to Radiators.

1. ^ "Family Sangalli / San Galli". Gruner-fam.de. Retrieved  2011-

09-20.
2. ^ "The hot boxes of San Galli"  (in Russian). Archived from the
original on 2010-02-07.
3. ^ "Franz San-Galli, German industrialist in St.   Petersburg,
Russia". www.saint-petersburg.com.
4. ^ Jump up to:a b "Archived copy"  (PDF). Archived from the
original  (PDF)  on 26 August 2014. Retrieved 2014-08-23.
5. ^ "Radiators". International Space Station. NASA.
Retrieved September 26, 2015.

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