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12-2 Cooling tank/ heat exchanger

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skeeter:
While I'm waiting for the concrete to arrive, I'm now focusing on putting into practice, the cooling system for my engine. Over the pass few months I've been kicking around ideas and gathering some material. Most of the schemes are CHP from the start, or at the minimum, will evolve into a CHP solution. I'm in the north country so additional heat is of major interest, along with my desire to  do things efficiently, when practical. The general idea that I've been entertaining, consists of  195 deg. thermostats on each of the upper cooling ports ( this part done), who's plumbing connects to a tee. One branch of the tee connects to an  elevated expansion/burp tank whose volume is a minimum 5 % of the overall cooling system. The other end of the tee is plumbed to a coil of soft copper tubing, whose connection is near the top of a 80 gal water tank. The bottom engine cooling connection are plumbed to the other end of the copper coil, exiting out the bottom of the tank. Now for reality, over the last number of months I have not come across my ideal water tank but have acquired a couple of (40 & 50 gal I believe) electric hot water tanks. I remember reading of at least two members who have used similar tanks for cooling 6-1's.  One fairly recent post describes plumbing to the upper and lower 1" heater element ports. With this in mind, my line of reasoning is to gain access to the interior of the tank to place and connect my copper coil heat exchanger to these ports, then use the normal hot and cold water connectings to run to a hot water heat loop. My real question is what will I find when I cut open a glass line water tank. Can someone describe the glass lining. Is their a place to cut that won't effect the lining, or is it just a matter of cracking the lining and removing it.

hotater:
"Glass lined"  usually means a thin layer of spun-in fiberglass that can be re-sealed with a kit from Home Depot.  Cut the tank with a sawzall and not a torch.   :o

As I understand your system, it will only have about three (?) gallons of fluids in it?   And you counting on heat transfer from the copper coil heat exchanger to the 80 gallons of water in the hot water heater?

I'd be interested to know how that works.  My 6-1 produces about 6 gallons an hour of 195 degree water.  Assuming your's is double that it means the three gallons of water will be circulating about four times an hour to start with but will get faster as the heat sink tank heats up...but it should take a while.   :)

Tom:
I cut my 40 gal water heater tank with a skill saw and abrasive blade. It came out real nice set the blade depth to just cut through the tank. The inside of the tank looked more plastic then glass lined. The fittings are 1" npt.

skeeter:
hotator - I'm glad I asked the question before putting a torch to it. I was thinking of using a 50 ft coil of 3/4 or 7/8 inch dia. The liquid volume in the coolant loop works out to a little over 4 gal. for the 3/4, and about 5.25 gal. for the 7/8". Your view of what i'm trying to do is correct. My assumption,  based a 80% + load, should move to the tank between 17.4K - 20.0K Btu/ hour ( based on another assumption, 33% to gen, 33% to exhaust, 33% to coolant). Although, I havn't yet tried to re-figure with the real data you've giving, my sense is the 80 gal is going to have a longer heat/ reheat time then I would like. That I should try the 40 or 50 gal tank first, then add the other (maybe thermo storage in the heat circulation loop) if needed. Not withstanding the added problems with cooling the exhaust, I'm wondering if an added thermo siphon loop here might make sense, since I'm planning on loading it real well, which should keep exhaust temps up. What do you think.

skeeter:
Tom - Skill saw with abrasive blade, sounds neat. Maybe after I do what I need to do inside, I could eplace the top just like new.

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