Every Thermal Grizzly water block, whether a Mycro Direct-Die CPU cooler or a DeltaMate GPU block, includes a test protocol (Pressure Test Protocol). The enclosed test protocol shows the individual result of a cooler as determined during testing. If a cooler should fail the air pressure test, it is returned to assembly, disassembled, and then reassembled and tested again.
The test protocol contains the following information:
- Product: The tested product
- Produced: Date of final assembly
- Test Date: Date of the air pressure test
- Test Pressure: The pressure used for testing in bar
- Test Result: The test result in pascal (Pa)
- Tested By: The initials of the tester
An ATEQ F620 leak tester is used as the test device. A differential pressure measurement is carried out with the device in each case:
- DeltaMate products are tested over 5 seconds at 1.0 bar. Threshold: 80 Pa (0.8 mbar).
- Mycro products are tested over 15 seconds at 0.6 bar. Threshold: 70 Pa (0.7 mbar).
This pressure is above the recommended value that should occur in the custom loop of a water-cooling system. In the industry, a pressure of around 0.5 bar has become established as the maximum, although some manufacturers subject their components to significantly higher pressure in tests. The test result is the difference between the measured air pressure at the beginning and at the end of the test. The measurement accuracy of the pressure drop measurement is ± (1% of X + 10 Pa).
Pressure, including air pressure, is, according to Pascal’s principle, the omnidirectional effect of a gas or a liquid and acts as a distributed force over an area in the form of mechanical pressure, which acts equally in all spatial directions as a normal stress. In the case of a custom loop, this means air, for example during a leak test, or coolant with a small amount of air in the loop. In fluid mechanics or thermodynamics, pressure plays an important role and accordingly also comes into play in a custom water-cooling system.
As a physical unit for pressure, bar is used as the unit name in physics, chemistry, and engineering, while “bar” is the unit symbol. The International System of Units uses pascal (Pa) as the unit of measurement for pressure. The following conversion applies: 1 bar = 100,000 Pa = 100 kPa = 0.1 MPa
If a GPU water block is tested over 5 seconds at 1.0 bar and the result remains below the threshold of 80 Pa (0.8 mbar), the test is considered passed. The pressure in the cooler has therefore dropped by less than 0.0008 bar. This is a very low value and corresponds to less than 0.08% of the test pressure or an 8 mm water column. A standard tire pressure gauge would not be able to measure this value.
The parameters of the air pressure test selected by our engineers cover the maximum expected pressure conditions within a custom loop and significantly exceed them in the case of DeltaMate coolers. Thermal Grizzly water blocks are approved for an operating pressure of a maximum of 0.6 bar in the custom loop. If components from other manufacturers are used in the loop, the manufacturer’s specifications regarding operating pressure must be observed. If the operating pressure is exceeded, this can lead to damage to the components of the water-cooling loop and have fatal consequences:
- If the pressure is too high, tubes can be torn off the fittings.
- Components may become deformed, which can negatively affect leak-tightness.
- Solder joints, chambers, or threaded sealing surfaces of radiators may be damaged.