Heatsink grease

[Chris Conlon]

Tom Matthews wrote:

> I believe that this discussion was the inquiry of the existance of
> coatings that increase component to air heat transfer..

Yeah, that was my original question. I have to admit I was being a
wee bit tricky; I had *heard* that such coatings existed but had no
leads on finding one. My actual application is an intercooler, not
a transistor heatsink, but the physics should be similar.

Fans don't help much because I don't have enough room to put in a
fan big enough to make a difference compared to airflow at speed.
(Til I move the battery up front, which will give me more room.)

The intercooler is actually painted (anodized??) black now, but I
may strip it clean - once the engine bay warms up it's pretty
damn hot in there. I suspect the engine bay is usually *hotter*
than the IC, someday I'll get around to measuring it.

> Ray Bohatz of BAT coatings advertises a coating that increases
> heat loss of aluminum (specifically advertised for TPI runners/plenums).

This is what I'm looking for. Do you have any contact information?
I'm searching the net now... no luck so far.


Another possibility: Would putting "dimples" on the surface, as
mentioned a while back, help surface-to-air heat transfer by
preventing the formation of a slow-moving, hot laminar layer? For
sure this is way beyond *my* limited fluid dynamics knowledge to
say for certain one way or the other.


> Didn't make sense to me, as I thought that increased heat
> conductance would actually make the problem worse by acting as a
> heat sink... This make any sense?

Yeah, I think so. For air intake components that are going to heat
up to engine block temperature, my plan is to use *insulating*
coatings on the inside if possible. (As well as trying to insulate
the component itself from the engine block, not usually doable.)


   Thank you for all the suggestions & info,
   Chris C.

p.s. I just found a web page with some info from Ray Bohacz... maybe
it'll have what I need.