There’s a great discussion going on at the Linked-In/Thermal Management group about “How to measure thermal conductivity of thermal paste, thermal adhesives, and solder pastes.” A number of professionals from the thermal management and heat transfer world have chimed in with suggestions and resources, click here to check out this excellent discussion on Linked In.
Of the number of resources mentioned in the discussion thread, one piece really stands out. It is a paper written by Dr. Clemens Lasance, “Problems with Thermal Interface Material Measurements: Suggestions for Improvement” In this paper Dr. Lasance goes through:
Increasingly it is apparent that measuring the thermal properties of Thermal Interface Materials (TIMs) causes much irritation for vendors and users alike. This article focuses on various measurement and standardization aspects and offers a strategy to overcome the problems.
It is well worth checking out and we’d highly recommend it.
coolingZONE’s library also has two resources that will help on this important topic and we’d recommend these as well:
1) Test methods for characterizing the thermal transmission properties of phase-change thermal interface materials “The purpose of this paper is to present the results of recent testing performed at Power Devices, Inc. on three different phase change materials to demonstrate that thickness variation during phase change can be measured and to show how it determines performance differences. ” http://www.coolingzone.com/library.php?read=463
(2) Tony Kordyban wrote an answer to a question on thermal paste that might also get you closer to your answer, you can find it at this link, just click to the link then scroll down a bit to see the question and answer on measurement and thermal paste http://www.coolingzone.com/library.php?read=504
(3) Finally, Advanced Thermal Solutions as an interesting blog post on this topic as well. The article covers, “When choosing a TIM, it’s essential to understand the testing methods to accurately determine the material’s bulk thermal properties and in situ performance.” Read it here: http://qats.com/cms/2012/06/19/testing-thermal-interface-materials/
