Editing 2790: Heat Pump
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In this comic, [[Cueball]] has a ''manual'' heat pump, which appears to operate on the same principle, but uses only a bellows-type container (presumably filled with refrigerant), and is powered only by his own muscles. The strip denotes the warm area with light red coloring, and the cooler outdoors with light blue. When he carries the container outdoors, he allows it to expand, causing it to become colder than the surroundings (indicated by it becoming a darker blue). He then waits until it warms to near the surrounding temperature (the blue becomes less intense), and carries it inside, where he physically presses the container together. This causes the gas in the container to become hotter than the room (denoted by it becoming a darker red), and it's indicated to be radiating that heat into the room, which is the basic purpose of the whole exercise. The final panel shows him carrying the bellows outside, presumably to repeat the whole cycle. | In this comic, [[Cueball]] has a ''manual'' heat pump, which appears to operate on the same principle, but uses only a bellows-type container (presumably filled with refrigerant), and is powered only by his own muscles. The strip denotes the warm area with light red coloring, and the cooler outdoors with light blue. When he carries the container outdoors, he allows it to expand, causing it to become colder than the surroundings (indicated by it becoming a darker blue). He then waits until it warms to near the surrounding temperature (the blue becomes less intense), and carries it inside, where he physically presses the container together. This causes the gas in the container to become hotter than the room (denoted by it becoming a darker red), and it's indicated to be radiating that heat into the room, which is the basic purpose of the whole exercise. The final panel shows him carrying the bellows outside, presumably to repeat the whole cycle. | ||
| β | While this design is theoretically possible, and is a fun illustration of how heat pumps work, it obviously wouldn't be practical in real life (as suggested by the caption). This is true for a number of reasons. First, the pressure required would be difficult for a human to exert with their bare hands. Even if they could do so, they would quickly tire of the exertion, and be unable to sustain the process for very long. The person would need to hold the container shut while it was transferring heat to the environment, which would take significant time, particularly since the container doesn't have much surface area to transfer heat. Depending on the refrigerant, the container could become dangerously hot and/or dangerously cold, or at the very least, unpleasant to hold directly. And the person is physically moving both the container and their own body in and out of the house on every cycle which a) involves a great deal of unnecessary effort and b) means that the person has to spend a large amount of their time outside in the cold. Even if particularly strong and determined person tried to warm a house this way, with no regard for efficiency, the air transfer resulting from going in and out through the door would probably exceed the amount of warming on each cycle, meaning that it wouldn't warm the house significantly. This is lampshaded by the title text, which implies that Cueball leaves the door open some of the time, which would undo nearly all of the benefit of this process | + | While this design is theoretically possible, and is a fun illustration of how heat pumps work, it obviously wouldn't be practical in real life (as suggested by the caption). This is true for a number of reasons. First, the pressure required would be difficult for a human to exert with their bare hands. Even if they could do so, they would quickly tire of the exertion, and be unable to sustain the process for very long. The person would need to hold the container shut while it was transferring heat to the environment, which would take significant time, particularly since the container doesn't have much surface area to transfer heat. Depending on the refrigerant, the container could become dangerously hot and/or dangerously cold, or at the very least, unpleasant to hold directly. And the person is physically moving both the container and their own body in and out of the house on every cycle which a) involves a great deal of unnecessary effort and b) means that the person has to spend a large amount of their time outside in the cold. Even if particularly strong and determined person tried to warm a house this way, with no regard for efficiency, the air transfer resulting from going in and out through the door would probably exceed the amount of warming on each cycle, meaning that it wouldn't warm the house significantly. This is lampshaded by the title text, which implies that Cueball leaves the door open some of the time, which would undo nearly all of the benefit of this process. |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
