• CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.netOP
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    1 month ago

    Metal has better thermal conduction (transferring heat from one end to the other) the brick/clay/mud is there for thermal insulation to trap more heat and keep the metal conducting even after the fire has gone out

    • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      so the rationale is that it warms up the whole thing faster? but that’s at the cost of insulation & materials requirements. someone should compare a full brick version to this

      • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.netOP
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        1 month ago

        It’s not really a matter of heating it up faster, tho I guess it would, it’s more about fuel efficiency i.e. how long the heating can last on the same amount of fuel

        With the clay acting as an insulator, heat that would usually escape from a naked metal pipe would be retained and used to keep the metal conducting heat for a longer period of time (so more bang for your buck in terms of fuel)

        I suppose you could use clay piping, but I doubt it could match aluminum piping in thermal conduction, it would require several experiments using different materials both metal and ceramic to find the sweet spot

        • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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          1 month ago

          the whole thing kind works on old principles so i was thinking how antecedents would work without high quality steel. involving ceramic is probably correct