Cooling 2 Rads 1 Fan hypothetical

[OneFineCoat]

Hi,

I have a hypothetical scenario, but i'm curious if anyone has ever actually tried it out in real life.

Imagine, if you will, a single (but fairly high powered) fan, pushing/pulling air through 2 watercooling radiators.
Maybe with the fan sandwiched between them.
Basically 1 fan attempting to cool 2 radiators.

I'm aware, of course, that this is an impractical setup, and that the warm air pulled from one radiator would then impede the cooling of the other.
It also means that if the first radiator (in the direction of airflow) was much hotter than the second, it would only serve to raise the temperature of the latter, though just how much i'm unsure.

Again, though, I was wondering if anyone had previously attempted it or anything similar for some real-world approximate numbers.


Thanks in advance for indulging me.

 

[tinyitx]

I just want to give some general thoughts about this idea. This rad-fan-rad back-to-back setup is not common but is not that different from other common setups.

Commonly, a dual fan-rad has 1st fan-rad in the front of the case and the 2nd fan-rad in the rear of the case. Fresh cool ambient air is pulled through the front fan-rad into the case, then this warmed air will pass through the fan-rad at the rear of the case to exit. So, air through the 1st rad is cooler while air through the 2nd rad is warmer.

Your idea of rad-fan-rad is basically combining the 1st and 2nd fan-rad into one to save some space perhaps. No big deal.

Of course, the 2nd rad will receive warmed air for its cooling. This is not ideal or most effective but it is not bad at all.

Say, fresh ambient air is 20C. This air will go through the 1st rad for cooling. Temp of air passed through will increase, probably around 5-10C higher, very generally speaking. So, this warmed air will then go through the 2nd rad. Air of temp 25-30C will go through the 2nd rad. Air of this temp will still be able to cool (highly unlikely to warm, ie reverse heat transfer is happening!) to 2nd rad. You can imagine a parallel scenario where the room temp is 30C and this air is now going through the 1st rad.

Summarily, that fan needs to have a very good high static pressure, in addition to high flow rate.

 

[ermac318]

Similar but not identical scenario - the Corsair One SFF system includes two radiator/pump combos, but the radiators don't have fans against them, instead a single exhaust fan at the top of the case pulls air through both rads. It seems to work well enough.

Basically if you can move air through the rad, and you have a powerful enough fan, you can move the fan elsewhere. But you need very well controlled airflow.

 

[paulesko]

Similar but not identical scenario - the Corsair One SFF system includes two radiator/pump combos, but the radiators don't have fans against them, instead a single exhaust fan at the top of the case pulls air through both rads. It seems to work well enough.

Basically if you can move air through the rad, and you have a powerful enough fan, you can move the fan elsewhere. But you need very well controlled airflow.

This is a very very interesting setup, because it would work very well with a high pressure fan and a completely air tight case. A lot of effort into the air tightness and airflow into the case has to be put into.

Also, for the OP, take a look at these threads. very interesting on what you are asking about.

Radiator Sandwich / Stacked Radiators / "SLI-Radiators" Test results

Lately, I've seen a lot of discussions about stacking two slim, low-cost radiators instead of using one thick, high-end radiator. Since high-end radiators like those made by Feser and Thermochill often cost more than twice of what slim, low-cost models cost, radiator-sandwiches could be an...

www.xtremesystems.org

More Radiator-Sandwich testing

Radiator-Sandwiches / Stacked Radiators It's a while back that I posted some rudimentary test results on stacked rads in this thread. I still have the two magicool triple-rads from that test but now, I also have heaters (300W) which allow for much better testing. So I gave this whole...

www.xtremesystems.org

 

[APSinc]

I would imagine that if the radiators were in the same loop, that you would pass the fluid through the warm radiator first, and then through the cool radiator second; this makes the temperature gradient closer but at the same time prevents any undoing of cooling that might occur by passing "cooler" fluid through the radiator with warmer air.

 

[ragnarock]

Funnily enough I am currently trying to design a buiild that is based on the same idea as the corsair one but more compact. one thing worth actually considering is the mac pros 2013 fan. That is a very high static pressure fan.