Hi everyone!
Today we are going to speak about our liquid for immersion cooling,
its properties, technical characteristics,
and the most important - its safety when cooling equipment.
To begin with, I want to say that for cooling equipment,
both air cooling and immersion systems are used.
The operation concept of these two systems is the same.
The only difference is in the properties and abilities of the coolant to remove heat.
Our installations were designed on the basis of immersion cooling,
since thermophysical properties of liquid considerably surpasses air in its thermophysical properties,
moreover, such systems are more compact, easier to maintain and eliminate problems with noise and dust.
As a coolant, you can use any dielectric liquid, even water or sunflower oil.
However, in our case, we are interested not only in dielectric properties of liquid,
but also in such important parameters as safety, low levels of toxicity and oxidability, as well as its inertness.
Our immersive liquid COOLANT is based on a set of mineral oils,
since they have good thermal properties,
such as high flash point, inertness to equipment, viscosity, heat capacity,
thermal conductivity and odourless.
Сonsequently,, immersion oils can serve as a good basis for creating an immersion liquid
for computing equipment cooling
As we’ve said before, immersion oils can serve as a good basis for creating an immersion liquid.
However, they have deficiencies, such as oxidation, for example.
To eliminate such negative aspects,
manufacturers add additives to their immersion liquids
which improve the performance properties of the coolant.
Well, now, the most important thing that needs to be discussed
is safety of an immersion liquid based on mineral oils which is used as a coolant.
It should be noted that the flash point of our COOLANT is about 300 degrees.
With the help of a gas burner with burning temperature of about 3000 degrees, we will try to fire our coolant.
As you can see, nothing happens.
On Youtube you could see a lot of similar reviews,
where manufactures use such tricks to “prove” the incombustibility of their liquids.
However, such experiments do not prove anything,
since a gas burner heats coolant only locally.
To make coolant burn, the entire volume of coolant must be heated to the ignition temperature.
Now let’s conduct another experiment that you may have seen on the Internet.
We will try to imitate a short circuit in the liquid.
To do this this we need a welding machine, immersion liquid and any container.
So, we have prepared our pot and need to fill it with COOLANT.
Turning on the welding machine and let's conduct our experiment
Let's discuss in detail what you just saw.
Short circuit in the liquid does not lead to its burning because there is simply no oxygen,
which is necessary for the burning process.
What you saw, so-called flash, appears due to local heating of the liquid to a high temperature.
Vapor comes up to the surface,
contacts with oxygen and burns if there is a an external source of ignition,
in our case - sparks from the welding machine.
The probability of flash formation is characterized by such a concept as a flash point of liquid,
which in this case is about 280 degrees.
However, in such conditions a self-sustaining combustion cannot happen.
Сonsequently, this experiment also does not prove the incombustibility of the coolant.
So, let's sum up.
Oil based immersion fluids do burn.
However, the parameters that are necessary for ignition in normal operating conditions are unattainable,
since the equipment operating in immersion liquid temperatures do not reach the temperatures necessary for the self-sustaining combustion.
For example, even if the operating temperatures of ASICs chips are 120 degrees,
the liquid temperature definitely will not reach the critical values ​​necessary for its ignition.
That's all that we wanted to tell you today, if you still have any questions, write them in the comments below.
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Bye!