A notable, but non-obvious, hazard of large oil cooled systems (or oil tanks, for that matter) is that you don't float in them. Fall into a tank of water, and you're positively buoyant, so all you have to do is keep your head above water.
Fall into a tank of oil with SG=0.8 and you sink like the proverbial stone. If by chance, you happen to be a champion water polo player in your spare time and able to tread water very well, you might do ok for a few minutes, if the oil isn't particularly viscous. But as long as we're talking quarrys and such, what about the scheme of building a big pit to fill full of ice during the winter, and melting it during the summer. (assuming you are in a less-than-wonderful-un-California-like climate where this would work.) On 9/4/12 11:56 AM, "Douglas Eadline" <deadl...@eadline.org> wrote: > >Of course those massive Zetta scale systems will live in huge >multi-story oil tanks that have been placed in old quarrys, >which provide bedrock support for the tank and a geothermal >heat sink. The sysadmins must operate oil swimming robots and even don >oil scuba suits to service hardware. Don't forget the Sterling engines >using the heat from oil to return a bit of useful work to the system. > >-- >Doug _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
