demac777

Here is my attempt to make sense of the subject in layman terms. Freemab had an excellent explanation and I'm essentially re-stating his description. The conversion from liquid in the tank to vapor in the available head space in the tank is simply by evaporation, the same process where by our skin is cooled through sweating. The tank by nature cannot produce more heat, as our bodies can, so the energy contained in the "system" (composed of the tank, gas, and vapor) is fixed based on the ambient temperature. As the liquid vaporises, the energy (heat) contained in the system is reduced. By immersing the tank in water, we are simply adding more energy by increasing the thermal mass of the "system" as the water becomes part of that system by transfering it's energy through conduction. The manifolding of multiple tanks decreases the rate of evaporation, and thereby slows the reduction of the energy contained in the system (which in turn is increased due to more thermal mass of the larger volume),in the same way in which we do not cool as efficiently by sweating when the relative humidity is high, preventing rapid evaporation of our sweat. As far as safety, I use those little tank buddy heaters which attach directly to the tank valve and they put out around 16,000 btu. I dont sweat those that much. When I'm fully up and running, I plan on my 100 tanks sitting on the outside, hardlined into the shop. That will separate any possible tank leaks/failures/blow-offs from ignition sources in the shop. BTW, I can't swear all the info above is 100% correct, but my chemistry and physics background usually serves me pretty well, so take it FWIW. I'll have to assume your not paying for it, I hope! ;)

We used to crush refractory all the time to make mortars and castables for kilns and foundries. It makes the castable lighter, better insulated and help it to survive the heat cycling expansion. There are probably some recipes on some of the ceramics websites. It may be referred to as "grog" in the recipes. Hope that helps!