Open source wetted material interactions for dielectric immersion cooling.
Beta — Community-Sourced Information. For informational screening only: risk levels are a starting point for engineering judgment, not a pass/fail verdict.
This database includes information contributed by OCP community participants. Although submissions may be reviewed, the data may be incomplete or contain errors in testing, reporting, or interpretation. Use it for informational screening only. Review the supporting evidence and independently qualify materials before deployment.
Risk levels reflect worst-case outcomes from OCP test data. Always perform independent qualification testing before deploying a material in a production immersion system. See the Reference Guide for details on each risk level.
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Worst observed risk by application and fluid, with counts for every risk level. Expand a category for materials; select a cell for records.
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Compare up to four components or fluids. Fluid comparisons show worst observed risk and assessed coverage; select a result for its records.
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Add wetted components, then select a fluid for an audit or compare all fluid families.
You can also pick a fluid from the all-fluids table in the audit.
This risk summary is a starting point based on OCP data, not a certification. The overall build status follows the highest-risk component selected. Independent qualification testing is required before deploying any material in a production immersion system.
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Each column shows every component's result in that fluid, with the overall build status at the bottom. Choose a fluid to audit it in detail.
Based on records with a mechanism tagged from OCP remarks (currently a partial, maintainer-reviewable annotation — see the Reference Guide).
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Thermodynamics: The dielectric coolant stays completely in its liquid state during the entire thermal cycle and does not boil. Heat is moved away from circuit board components via convection (forced pump flow or natural gravity currents) through dry heat exchangers or secondary cooling loops wetted by the fluid.
Wetted Fluid Classes: Mineral oils, Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) synthetic hydrocarbons, Polyalphaolefins (PAO), Synthetic Esters (biodegradable), and plant-derived Natural Esters.
Primary Physical stress: Wetted materials swell due to absorption, polymer elements undergo structural softening, and plastics wetted under high physical stress crack rapidly.
Thermodynamics: Dielectric coolants vaporize by undergoing a physical state transition (boiling) on the surfaces of heat-generating silicon. The hot gas rises to the top of an airtight chassis, rejects its latent heat to a water-cooled condenser, and drips back down as fluid.
Wetted Fluid Classes: Volatile fluorochemical coolants, primarily Perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and Perfluoropolyethers (PFPE) with low boiling thresholds.
Primary Physical stress: Thermally highly stable, but prone to moisture intake, boiling-induced mechanical cavitation, and dissolved material transfer across the bath.
How to tell them apart (per Section 4.2 of the v1.0 whitepaper): direct interactions are mechanisms that result from the fluid itself — occurring within the fluid (aging, moisture uptake) or where the fluid affects a wetted material — and can lead to failure of a part or the whole system. Indirect interactions do not result from the fluid itself, but from the chemicals released or produced by direct interactions: by-products circulating with the coolant cause failures remote from their source. Two mechanisms — Dissolution and Aging — appear in both OCP tables, because each degrades its immediate target directly and releases by-products that act elsewhere.
Definition: The interaction results from the fluid: it degrades either the wetted component in contact with the fluid, or the fluid's own dielectric performance. The damage appears where the interaction happens.
Mechanisms:
Definition: The interaction does not result from the fluid itself, but from chemicals released or produced by direct interactions — oxidation by-products, dissolved additives, extracted residues — circulating in the shared bath and causing failure remote from their source.
Mechanisms:
System-level risks of a degraded bath:
For two-phase fluorochemical fluids, the whitepaper frames the same distinction as primary compatibility (the direct effect of the fluid on a material — fluid–material) and secondary compatibility (one material affecting another using the fluid as a vector — material–material). Boiling amplifies the secondary pathway: non-volatile contaminants concentrate on boiling surfaces by distillation, reducing heat transfer, while freshly distilled condensate aggressively re-extracts contaminants from elastomers. This transport loop is exactly what the Soxhlet extraction screen reproduces in the lab.
Risk levels reflect the worst-case outcome observed across OCP test data for a given fluid–material pairing. They are a starting point for engineering judgment — not a pass/fail verdict. Color is never the only indicator: each level also uses a distinct label, symbol, border, or pattern. The higher the risk level, the more rigorous your independent evaluation should be before deploying that material in a production immersion system.
OCP testing found no significant degradation under standard immersion conditions. The material has demonstrated baseline compatibility with this fluid class.
Evaluation guidance: Standard engineering judgment applies. Review test conditions to confirm they match your operating envelope (temperature, duration, load). Periodic re-evaluation is recommended for long service life deployments.
Results vary across test conditions, fluid batches, or material grades. Compatibility is possible but cannot be assumed without additional context.
Evaluation guidance: Independent coupon testing is strongly recommended under your specific operating conditions. Review OCP test parameters, identify which variables drove mixed results, and validate in-situ before committing to a design.
The material exhibits degradation (swelling, hardness loss, mass change, or cracking) under thermal or mechanical stress conditions representative of real system operation.
Evaluation guidance: Use requires dedicated stress testing per OCP protocols. Define application-specific degradation limits, perform accelerated life testing, and establish a re-qualification schedule. Conditional use may be viable with engineering controls and active monitoring.
OCP testing demonstrated clear incompatibility — significant structural failure, chemical attack, or system-level contamination risk has been observed with this pairing.
Evaluation guidance: Avoid this pairing unless an extensive, application-specific qualification program has been completed. Consult the OCP whitepaper and consider alternative materials before proceeding. If unavoidable, escalate to your component vendor and document all residual risk formally.
No OCP test data exists for this fluid–material combination. The absence of data should not be interpreted as compatibility.
Evaluation guidance: Treat as unknown risk. Full material characterization is required: baseline coupon testing, immersion soak at operating temperature, and functional testing of the wetted component. Consider contributing results to the OCP database to benefit the broader community.
Screening test methods from the published OCP whitepaper: Material Compatibility in Immersion Cooling, Version 1.0 (Nov 2022; the workstream is actively revising it toward 2.0). Individual fluid-class charts can specify different conditions, so always follow the applicable fluid-class method. These cards are guidance for comparable screening tests, not a replacement for application-specific qualification.
The whitepaper's baseline method, not a substitute for a condition explicitly stated on a particular fluid-class chart.
Apply the limits to the relevant measured properties and document any application-specific acceptance criteria.
Explore the ways dielectric fluids and wetted materials can affect one another over time. Each entry explains how the interaction begins, the damage it can cause, and the evaluation or mitigation guidance recommended by OCP. Some mechanisms can act directly at the point of contact and indirectly when degradation by-products circulate through the shared fluid bath.
Submissions will generate a structured GitHub Issue. Project maintainers will review the evidence before merging an observation into the dataset.