Glycol vs. Water - HVAC/R engineering

If you use Glycol, you have to account for density differences as well as viscosity differences. Depending on your concentration of Glycol, that can change your pressure drops through piping and Hx's. I'd say as a rule of thumb, if you use very low concentrations of EG or PG, you can just about treat it like water.

But, if your design calls for you to use high concentrations, say 40-50-60% EG or PG, you will require different pumps and your system pressure drops will be quite different at each point.

As IRstuff states, the colder the fluid, the more viscous it gets and you will get to a point where it may not freeze, but you can't pump it either. I had to cajole Dow to give me properties for 60% PG by assuring them that I didn't intend to pump it - just keep it from freezing. It is nasty stuff at that concentration and -40 F (or C).

Get a Crane Technical Paper 410 and find the Darcy equations and do some pressure drop calculations to see the difference.

rmw

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