Knurling - cooling

[MrLee]

Hey guys,

I've been doing a machining night course for fun, we did knurling on the lathe last week, which had me thinking about whether the increased surface area would have much difference on heat dissipation.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Lee

[thickfog]

Hey guys,

I've been doing a machining night course for fun, we did knurling on the lathe last week, which had me thinking about whether the increased surface area would have much difference on heat dissipation.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Lee

Have to be some seriously deep knurles. I really doubt it.

[MrLee]

I'm really not sure, it significantly increases surface area.

[brad72]

The knurling will increase the surface area a little but not by much.

Perhaps you should do an experiment. Take 2 bars of alloy of equal diameter and length. Knurl 1 and not the other then attach an led and power it with a driver with thermal cutout and time which one hit the thermal cutout first. The main thing will be to use the same led and driver on each bar to keep things equal.

[ML_ryder]

Knurling does increase the surface area which should help with heat transfer. There may also be some benefits to having rougher surface finish because of the knurling.

[MrLee]

I'm not expecting it to be massive, but would make an interesting experiment - it is also more interesting regarding the air disturbance factor in real world tests and not on a bench, ie with some air flow.

[thickfog]

I'm not expecting it to be massive, but would make an interesting experiment - it is also more interesting regarding the air disturbance factor in real world tests and not on a bench, ie with some air flow.

If you ever try it and test it, please post results. It would be interesting.

[bikeabuser]

I'm not expecting it to be massive, but would make an interesting experiment - it is also more interesting regarding the air disturbance factor in real world tests and not on a bench, ie with some air flow.

It appears that you're onto something - AUGMENTATION OF HEAT TRANSFER, TWO-PHASE
But how much of an increase you might see, seems to be a question without an answer.