Ok nerd friends, help me out with a thermodynamics problem? I don't understand how flow rate effects the heat coefficient rate of a closed system, and how much entropy will play a part in that system.

The in-depth problem: I have 400 gallons of ethanol flowing through a heat transfer unit at a rate of 66/gpm and being recycled back into the heat transfer unit until it reaches freezing. For the purpose of this argument assume that the heat transfer unit stays of freezing no matter how much ethanol passes through it. Will increasing the flow rate lower or increase the speed of the transfer? Why? Will entropy play a part? How much of a part?

100fg to anyone who can make this easily understood by the layman.

It's just a water cooling problem.


You have a loop passing through a hot section and a cold section. The ethanol passes over the hot section, carries the heat to the cold section, and the cold section absorbs the heat, then the cold ethanol goes back to the hot section.



Speeding up the rate of flow will increase the heat transfer, because as the flow reaches infinity it will be just like the hot and cold sections are touching with no intermediate. This is a fundamental law of the universe that energy seeks to even itself out, so if you have a hot and cold surface they will exchange heat until they are equal temperatures.