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Awater jacket is a water-filled casing surrounding a device, typically a metal sheath having intake and outlet vents to allow water to be pumped through and circulated. The flow of water to an external heating or cooling device allows precisetemperature control of the device.
Water jackets are often used forwater cooling or heating. They are also used inlaboratory glassware:Liebig,Graham, andAllihn condensers. Water jackets were used to cool the barrels ofmachine guns until several years after theFirst World War, but modern machine guns are air-cooled to conserve weight and hence increase portability.
In areciprocating pistoninternal combustion engine, the water jacket is a series of holes either cast or bored through the mainengine block and connected by inlet and outlet valves to aradiator.
Equipment such astissue culture incubators may be enclosed in a water jacket kept at a constant temperature.[1]
A water jacket is used in anOrsat analyzer to prevent any change in temperature from affecting the density of the gas being analyzed.[2]
The concept gives its name to thewater jacket furnace, a type of blast furnace, using a cold air blast, that was used for the smelting of non-ferrous metallic mineral ores. These furnaces are cooled by a water jacket arrangement.[3] The terminology is also used for an indirect heating device used in the petroleum oil and gas industry, generally known as a water jacket heater[4] or water bath heater.
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