Plastic radiators?

John Shea

The very idea probably makes most of you cringe (including myself).

Imagine a clear plastic radiator hot water or steam. Allowing you to see the entrance of steam and the creation and removal of condensate.

Add food coloring the the system water and you'd have 'purple haze'. Yuppies everywhere would go crazy.

I certainly am no engineer. I know little of all the properties a substance needs to efficiently convect and/or radiate heat. However, I thought I'd research a little.

CoolPolymers makes a plastic that can be as thermally conductive as cast iron. Is this the only thing that matters? What about heat transfer, or is that the same thing? Unfortunately, they cannot make it clear.

If they could, I'd be getting quotes from plastics extrusion companies to make up some tube and fittings. It's machinable, so a radiator could be built.

Even if you could get it clear and have it transfer as much heat as cast iron, would it hold up?

I was informed the specs of the tube and operating condions would determine the maximum thermal conductivity.
I contacted the company and gave them the following specs of the top of my head:

>I.D.: 0.90"
>O.D.: 1.25"
>Wall Thickness: 0.175"
>Electrical conductivity is unimportant.
>Thermal conductivity IS important. 40 - 60 W/mK is >desired with the realization that achieving this may not >be possible.
>Must withstand working pressures of up to 15 psi
>Must withstand temperatures up to 240deg F
>Clear in physical appearance is desired, however, >not 'make-or-break'.
>
>Other physical, mechanical or thermal properties are >unimportant at this stage.
>
>I have a few questions as well:
>
>Based on your Product Data sheets, I'm thinking the E->series 5101 might be the grade I'm looking for?
>Can any of your plastics be 'solvent welded'?
>If so, what type of solvent would be necessary?
>Can it be easily machined?

The company rep didn't see a problem with achieving those properties. My limited research found the thermal conductivity of cast iron to be about 50W/mK.

Anyway, enough of my silly ideas have gone belly-up, and I've got too many pans on the fire to even invest anymore thought about this one right now.

Thought it was a cool idea and wanted to share it. I hope it makes someone rich someday, LOL. If it does, be sure to drop me a couple a bucks, OK? :)

Craig_8

well, we already heat houses with plastic in the form of pex tubing for radiant heat. it seems to work perfectly fine, so im sure with a little work it could be possible to make radiators out of plastic.

John Shea

Good point.

I guess it's the idea of seeing inside the radiator that made the idea interesting to me.

JohnWood1

BUT would a customer like to look....

Think of the color of the boiler "tea" in a usual system.............

nuther thot........ how about O2 permeability?

I actually do like the idea of "plastic" rads tho, just not clear ones except for instructional purposes.

Uni R

I'd switch to glycol...

Just for the color! Actually wouldn't plastic rads would have an advantage for cooling, since it wouldn't matter as much if they slipped below the dew point?

Dave Stroman

Give it 3 months and the inside will be coated with a nice layer of black iron oxide.

Dave in Denver

ScottMP

You'd be supprised

at the companys that are thinking about this

What about a water treatment that would allow different color for different temperarture changes. You could see the hotter water entering the radiator as the cooler water fell to the bottom. Red and blue.

Ahhhhh mmmmannn.... pass that over here.... cough cough



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Jay_17

The dye

The dye would probably not travel with the steam, but it is a cool idea!
Jay

Constantin

Here are some of the things I'd think about...

... plastic radiators certainly could have their place in areas where subsituting plastic for metal has weight and corrosion advantages. Trouble is, I can't think of an application outside the marine industry where this really matters.

Another concern of mine would be the longevity of the product. Metal corrodes, but plastic can too, if the mix of chemicals on the inside goes bad. As I doubt that such a radiator could be cast economically in one piece, you'd have to resort to things like ultrasonic welding to join halves. Such joints would be the most likely candidates for leaks.

Furthermore, it is much easier to maintain the quality, consistency, and most importantly the strength of things like PEX as long as you use long uniform tubes instead of complicated 3D shapes.

For me, the main benefit would be the ability to do some neat stuff on the inside of the sections. For example, you could incorporate bypass piping into a baseboard radiator, thus reducing the amount of piping needed in a home, labor, etc.

Unknown

one word

EXPANSION

Most plastics expands 10 times more then copper when heated.

You will have to use pretty flexable pipe to connect while the rad heats and grows.

forget about clear... you don;t want to see grey inside the rads.

wheels

tim smith

Possibly Pyrex.

Pyrex waste fittings have been around a long time for labs, Maybe the could mold it into a radiator??

jim sokolovic

There are these lttle...

stickers you can put on pipes that change color to indicate the surface temperature - couldn't a coating be put on the radiator to do the same as the temperature changes?

Could Gorton make tuned steam vents that play "Inna Godda Divida" as the steam comes up?

Cast Iron Buttafly!

Chuckles_3

If I had plastic radiators in my house, I'd also want wall-to-wall lush plush pile, fiberglass shower stalls, vinyl windows, fluorescent lighting, an above-ground pool...oh, I'd probably also want forced air.

Sorry...seriously...plastic radiators are unlikely to look good in the kind of house that has hot water heat.