Excellent info. I've never even seen actual liquid, I just see a pattern where moisture has been and changed the pattern of the way dust has collected. Makes me feel better about the urgency and maybe my new Mopar can sit on the shelf for another year or more.
I don't doubt that. My opinion is that it has less to do with the joining method and more to do with the tank design and/or the skill of the fabricator.
Absolutely. These are condenser coils on a large air conditioning chiller (150-500 ton) and to achieve the UL listing, samples have had to withstand a test involving 1500-2000 psi. The plate that the tubes penetrate and the tank welds to is around 3/4" or thicker, machined from plate. The "tank" is cast with passages inside connecting one tube to another in the next row, not an open tank like in a radiator. I don't know what the thickness is at the thinnest point (the drawings were concealed from all but a few directly involved in the design) but it's more than anything that would be stamped or formed. If I remember correctly the tank by itself was 50 pounds or more.
