Carb ice

I have never
understood the reason for it. Maybe they have Freon cooled carburetors or
something. :-)


You joke about the Freon, but you have come pretty close to the answer.
The reason air conditioners work is because of evaporation. The Freon
is compressed into a liquid. The condenser, the 'radiator' up front,
does serves two purposes. 1, it condenses the compressed freon gass
into liquid; and 2, it cools down the hot liquid freon. Then the liquid
is sprayed through an expansion valve into a low pressure "evaporator".
The evaporating freon cools simply through the act of evaporating.
Take a spray bottle filled with water and spray it at your face on a hot
day. The evaporating water will cool your face.

You mentioned that a carburetor can freeze even on 100 degree days. A
refrigerator can also create ice even on a 100 degree day. Much like
the freon, your gas is being sprayed into a low pressure area of the
carburator and the evaporation of the gas can cool the surrounding air,
and humidity, to a temperature below freezing.

I once knew the physics numbers behind evaporating gas, but that was
many years ago. Suffice it to say, icing can occur on hot days.

"m pautz" wrote

I once knew the physics numbers behind evaporating gas, but that was
many years ago. Suffice it to say, icing can occur on hot days.

Right. But people need to pay attention to the amount of water in the air,
'cause it is the water vapor in the air that freezes. You could cool air
down to relative zero, and it would not freeze, *if* it had no water in it.
:-)
--
Jim in NC


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