Pykrete for reservoir cooling...

[Guest]

Some Pykrete info
Pykrete Wiki

and google "pykrete" for other demonstrations and information..

Pykrete is a composite material made of approximately 14% sawdust (or, less frequently, wood pulp) and 86% ice by weight, invented by Max Perutz and proposed during World War II by Geoffrey Pyke to the Royal Navy as a candidate material for making a huge, unsinkable aircraft carrier, Project Habakkuk, actually more of a floating island than a ship in the traditional sense. Pykrete has some interesting properties, notably its relatively slow melting rate (due to low thermal conductivity), and its vastly improved strength and toughness over pure ice, actually closer to concrete. Pykrete is slightly harder to form than concrete, as it expands while freezing, but can be repaired and maintained from the sea's most abundant raw material.

My idea is to make a mix of Pykrete, stick it in some sort of container or bag and just drop it in my reservoir... simple enough? Because this stuff takes forever to melt, my theory is it should drop res temps without the hassle of having to worry about coming home to melted 2lt bottles of ice.. (yall following me so far?) If I have time tommorow I will test this little theory out..

Suggestions, comments, and feedback are welcome =]

 

[chosen]

Do it and give up the recipe. Even if it holds for more than a day or so, that is the wonder stuff.

 

[Guest]

Here are some more links..
Pykrete Movie
Experiment by some kids


When I go to the depot tommorow i'll grab some saw dust and get to it immediately! If it does hold up for more than a day, this just might help out lots of folks around here... What kind of container would best hold/insulate the pykrete? Or should I just use a 2 liter bottle?

"I have," Mountbatten explained, "a block of a new material that I would like to put in your bath."

Mountbatten opened his parcel and dropped its contents between the Prime Minister's bare legs in the water. It was a chunk of ice.

Rather than bellow at his Chief of Combined Operations, Churchill stared at the ice intently — and so, standing by the bathtub, did Mountbatten himself. Minutes passed, and still they looked into the steaming depths of bath water before them. The ice was not melting...

 

[chosen]

curious, maybe a bottle, but what about a styrofoam container? Would it break down? I forgot those thermal bag things that are silver. They use them to let you shop without your frozen goods getting warm. Once you give a recipe, I will track one down.

 

[Guest]

you make it by adding 14% (by weight) or more cellulose—in the form of sawdust, wood chips, paper shreds (old yellow pages, newspapers), cotton wool, tshirt scraps, possibly even some coco—to the ice or water. Mix it up and freeze it =]

I was reading that a 50/50 mix creates the strongest blocks.. only one way to find out!

 

[chosen]

thanks, I'll let you know

 

[marx2k]

...updates?

 

[Guest]

Haven't tried it yet... Im a slacker =]

 

[Harry Gypsna]

that would be a great idea man, wood shavings and ice, this stuffs amzing, i saw it brainiac science abuse they were trying to melt it with a blowtorch to no avail, i think they even tried dynamiting it...... I know thee were plans in the war to buld big floating battle platforms/barriers alongthe coasts, ....great stuff and i bet in the average res one lumo the size of an i9ce cream tub would stay frozen for a couple of days at least

 

[Guest]

have you tried the 50/50 mix yet IS??

this would be great as i have to change ice bottles in my every 12 hrs now going into the summer

 

[minds_I]

Hello all,

I hate to burst yoru bubbles but it won't work. The reason it takes so long to melt is that it has great insulation properties associates with the saw dust.

You can't get something for nothing...yes, it wioll take longer to melt but it will remove heat fromt eh tank at a slower rate. You gain nothing.

This is not just an opinion it is a physical law...conservation of mass and energy.

minds_I

 

[Guest]

Im gonna try it out either tommorow or over the weekend. I don't doubt ya one bit, I just really have to see for myself. There are a couple different ways I would like to try cooling the water, besides just dropping a frozen container in the res.

 

[spiralsmurf]

if it doesn't melt quickly then how is it going to cool down your rez? the reason ice works to cool down things is because it is thermally conductive. Reducing thermal conductivity is a bad idea. for example, if you used crushed ice instead of a 2liter, your rez would cool down faster, but the ice would melt faster. unfortunately the only way to make things cool your res for longer is to put MORE ice.