Mayf--
Unless I really trusted my engineering and welding I'd stay away from
aluminum pipe and homemade fittings. I think the heat transfer gains are
trivial compared to the grief you'll face if something breaks on the salt.
The race car vibration environment is terrible and and thin aluminum
structures need real good design to withstand it. At least if copper or
steel cracks you have some hope of fixing it.
Some years ago the aluminum water tank on Doug King's roadster broke a seam
on the Salt. We got lucky and fixed it good enough for two more runs and a
record with a bunch of epoxy and a dozen or so self tapping sheet metal
screws off the door frame of the trailer. This experience convinced me that
the only way to do tanks for land speed cars is 304L stainless steel and run
the pipes and connections in easily repairable conventional hardware that
can stand lots of heat and vibration and is reasonably corrosion resistant.
Where disimilar metals connect together I like to use non hardening teflon
pipe dopes and as a minimum some lubriplate grease in straight threads.
Although experience has shown that anodized AN fittings do reasonably well
without any grease in the salt environment on a car that gets a thorough
annual winter maintenance cycle.
Ed Weldon
----- Original Message -----
From: "drmayf" <drmayf@mayfco.com>
To: "LSR" <land-speed@autox.team.net>
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 2:15 PM
Subject: Water Tank Plumbing Qs
> I am leaning towards aluminum simply because it gets rid of heat
> better than steel and the runs will be several feet.
|