In misc.industry.utilities.electric wrote:
| wrote:
|
||A larger tank should help, given a smaller surface to lose heat from...
||
|| Larger tanks have less surface?
|
|As the volume goes up proportionally to the cube of a dimension, the surface
|area through which heat can escape goes up only proportionally to the square
|of a dimension, assuming a constant shape (e.g. ratio between diameter and
|length for a cylinder). A tank which doubles in size for all dimensions
|will have 4 times the surface area (where the heat escapes), and 8 times the
|volume (where heat is held)...
|
| A lovely explanation, but as you write above, larger tanks
| have MORE surface, so larger tanks have MORE heat loss...

Compare storing 800 liters of hot water in one big 800 liter tank, versus
8 separate 100 liter tanks.

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| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
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