I've been thinking about this all day following a comment yesterday about
copper conducting heat better than aluminum.
So I don't doubt that copper conducts heat better than aluminum. But I
thought aluminum dissapites heat better than copper. I'm thinking it does,
but I'm not positive of the physics behind it really.
And for purposes of comparison, is a material's ability to conduct heat
ALWAYS directly porportional to conducting electricity? Is there any
material out there that's great at conducting heat, but not electricity or
vice versa?
Can we assume that if material A conducts electricity better than material
B, that material A also conducts heat better than material B?
And finally, is the property of a material to conduct heat also make it a
good property to dissipate heat?
Every heat sink I've ever seen was made of aluminum. And I don't think
they did it for weight savings. Maybe cost savings?
And for the most part, the VAST majority of wires I've worked with were
copper, or an alloy that was mostly copper. As I recall, back int the 70s,
they had a disasterous experiment using aluminum core wiring for homes.
The result was a lot of melted wires where they met copper termininals.
If it's a super-important installation, we find gold contacts which I
believe is the BEST conductor of electiricty, but to the best of my
knowledge, nobody has ever made a radiator of gold.
So I know we have some scientists on this list, what's the scoop? Why does
aluminum loose to copper for conducting heat ( and electiricy ) but wins (
I think ) over copper for dissipating heat? Is it simply a cost issue?
Cost and strength?
Just curious....
-jeffrey
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