GRIDCOOLERS
A brief history of keel cooling
Keel cooling first appeared in the early 1800’s when someone hung a copper tube over the edge of a boat to condense steam. It later evolved into pieces of channel welded onto the hull. These channel-cooling systems offered important advantages over raw water-cooling. They eliminated silt and sand buildup in engine jackets and protected engines against salt-water corrosion. Unfortunately, their sheet bulk reduced a ship’s capacity and increased its drag. They were also prone to seaweed foulup. Clearly, a more compact and streamlines cooler was needed. This led to packaged keel coolers, and the FERNSTRUM success story.
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Description
Some Cool Facts About Fernstrum Gridcoolers
The GRIDCOOLER is a heat exchanger of the outboard or hull type, often referred to as a keel cooler.
The GRIDCOOLER eliminates sand and silt deposits in engine jackets, and protects your engine from corrosion and deposits in salt-water operation.
The GRIDCOOLER’S unique design eliminates the objections associated with keel cooling – such as bulkiness, drag, fouling and weight. In many cases, a GRIDCOOLER requires only one twentieth of the space needed for channel cooling.
LOW DRAG – Independent test run at the Vienna Model Test Basin have shown that drag is negligible or almost non-existent when GRIDCOOLERS are recessed in a ship’s hull. On our high speed test boats, we found that the difference between rolling and brushing regular anti-foulant hull paint on the hull of the boats created more drag than our GRIDCOOLERS.
PRESSURE DROP – Because the pressure drop over the GRIDCOOLER is extremely low, it does not restrict the flow of jacket water, making possible the use of a centrifugal circulating pump, as well as displacement types.
EASILY INSTALLED – The design of the GRIDCOOLER presents no greater problem than the ordinary through – hull fittings. The GRIDCOOLER eliminates the sea-water pump, strainer, scoop and sea cock. (Except for wet type exhaust system, which usually require a small capacity pump). The GRIDCOOLER is a completely assembled unit ready for installation, complete with heavy neoprene gaskets for sealing the inside and outside of the hull.
VARIETY – GRIDCOOLERS are available in over 8000 models to meet your operating conditions and the engine manufacturer’s exact cooling requirements for your engine.
