I may be opening a ‘can of worms’, but I want to share my opinion on the thermal conductivity of some products.
There are two kinds of manufactures of these thermally conductive greases and compounds…
- those who’s products are aimed to the consumer market (you and me)
- those who’s products are aimed toward commercial and industrial applications (Boeing, NASA, Lockheed)
The manufactures who’s products are consumer based seem to take a lot of leeway on reporting their specs.
This study was preformed by the Department of Energy-NREL
(These are the kinds of things I read for fun…if it’s not fun for you, just skip to page 7)
These are thermal greases, not thermal epoxies, but I think the information is still valid.
There are 6 materials being tested, on previous pages, you can read about their test setup (don’t worry, they have pictures too).
Of the 6 test materials, 2 are consumer based and 4 are commercial/industrial. Of the 4 commercial products, the manufacture’s
claimed performance was very close to the actual test results. The 2 consumer products, the mfg. data was about 10 times higher than
the tested performance.
I think the problem is, with the consumer market products, claims can be made without any recourse…in the industrial/commercial market,
the specs must be accurate and usually independently verified.
The problem for us is we’re trying to make decisions on performance using mixed information…it looks like Artic Silver’s performance specs may
be exaggerated by 10 fold vs sources like Engineering Tool Box, who’s data, I believe, is accurate.
…just thought you should know.