Fin Tube----Oil Cooler
An oil cooler is a separate, smaller radiator from an engine's main radiator, which maintains an oil supply at a consistent, optimal temperature. Broadly put, lower oil temperatures prolong the life of an engine or transmission. A cooler can play an important role in the smooth running of a vehicle by dissipating heat while transporting oil away from moving parts into the oil pan.
The optimum temperature for oil is between 180° and 200°F (82° and 93°C). Failures start to occur when oil cannot dissipate its collected heat fast enough and rises past this threshold. As it begins to break down, oil loses its lubricating, as well as its cooling, properties.
While a majority of cars are not manufactured with proprietary engine oil coolers, there is a large aftermarket for them, and they are common accessories in vehicles involved in towing and other heavy-duty applications. There are oil cooling kits for both motors and automatic transmissions. In engines, oil not only functions as a lubricant but also as the coolant for a number of parts. A motor's bottom end, which includes parts such as the crankshaft, bearings, camshaft, rods, and pistons, is cooled only by engine oil.
Engine oil cooler design can be split into two types: tube and fin style, and stacked-plate design. Tube and fin style coolers are designed so that oil circulates through cooler lines — the tubes. As the oil circulates, the lines dissipate the heat through the fins. The stacked-plate design forces oil through a series of plates, with heat extracted as air moves across the plates. This more passive design is significantly less effective at cooling oil than tube and fin.
A transmission oil cooler can be essential for automatic transmissions used in high-strain applications, because a transmission's lubricating fluid heats up with each gear change. While not crucial for highway driving in which gear changes are minimized, transmission coolers can markedly improve the performance and longevity of transmissions that are subjected to a great deal of stress. Overheated transmission oil can lead to slower gear shifts, worn seals, lower mileage, and, ultimately, premature failure.
In a stock setup, transmission fluid is cooled as its collected heat transfers to the colder engine coolant that surrounds it. For maximum effectiveness, a cooler works best when mounted in front of a stock radiator, as it is there subject to an unobstructed source of cool air. This, in turn, allows much cooler fluid to return back to the transmission case.
Oil cooling refers to a process in which oil is used as a coolant. The oil is heated by the object it cools and then usually passes through a cooling unit such as an oil cooler, typically a type of radiator, or less commonly a gas decompresser. The cooled oil flows back into the hot object to cool it continuously.
Oil cooling is most commonly used to cool high-performance motorcycle engines that are not water-cooled. The cylinder barrel is air-cooled, as is commonly used for motorcycles, but the cylinder head may require additional cooling. As there is already an oil circulation system available for lubrication, this oil is also piped to the cylinder head and used as a liquid coolant. Compared to an oil system used solely for lubrication, oil cooling requires additional oil capacity, a greater flow rate through the oil pump and also an oil-air oil cooler, or a larger oil cooler if one is already present.
Advantages and disadvantages
Advantages
Disadvantages
If the object requiring cooling is hot enough to degrade the cooling oil, a compressed cooled gas would be used. As compressed gas is decompressed, heat is absorbed from surroundings of the gas, in particular, the hot object.
Key words: Fin Tube, Finned Tubes, oil cooler