tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156536327610779049.post5708397914277310281..comments2024-02-23T11:23:45.971-05:00Comments on Lost Motorcyclist: Ice Road Biker (Does an Ice Cube Float in Hot Water?)Lost Motorcyclisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08873504561959138792noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156536327610779049.post-50072875573569177462010-11-30T08:45:50.486-05:002010-11-30T08:45:50.486-05:00Water has the relatively unusual property of being...Water has the relatively unusual property of being more dense in its liquid state than in its solid (most substances, in their solid state, will sink if suspended in a volume of its liquid state). Hence, ice cubes float and the temperature of the water is immaterial.<br /><br />Water is also interesting in that it's most dense just prior to its liquid to solid <a href="http://hercules.gcsu.edu/~sdatta/home/teaching/hydro/slides/density_t.gif" rel="nofollow">phase change</a> - at +4°C.<br /><br />As far as domestic plumbing, the earlier use of 'air chambers' to eliminate 'water hammer' has beeen <a href="http://www.pmmag.com/Articles/Column/c88783d4ebfc7010VgnVCM100000f932a8c0____" rel="nofollow">deprecated</a>. The 'air chambers' once called for in the plumbing code are gone; those chambers would get water-logged (and thus useless) or become contaminated.<br /><br />So, in most cases, domestic water systems have no room for expansion as their water freezes. The 'Type M' copper tubing most commonly used in domestic water applications has a rated pressure of <a href="http://www.coppercanada.ca/publications/pub28E/28e-publicationptb6.html" rel="nofollow">494 psi</a> - more than enough to handle the usual 80 psi or so in residential systems, but potentially unable to handle the strain once the phase change to ice, and the increase in volume with reduced density, occurs.<br /><br />In fact, elbows, with their greater relative cooling surfaces, often freeze first, forming 'sealed containers' of the remaining water. 'Burst pipes' are actually quite often failures at those connections to those elbows.Madeyehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02593933575568389288noreply@blogger.com