Advance Liquid-Cooled Avionics Enclosure

As the chip power increases, aluminum avionics enclosures (chassis) equipped with liquid-cooled cold wall are currently being proposed and qualified for advanced military fighters. There is an urgent need to further reduce the weight and to improve the performance of these enclosures. The ability to use both structural and high-conductivity carbon fiber composites materials offers a realistic possibility to achieve both performance goals at the same time. For example, an advanced fiber composite electronic enclosure equipped with advanced liquid-cooled cold wall is predicted to weigh 30 - 50 percent less than current state-of-the-art counterpart. Under this proposed program, advanced composite cold walls will be designed, fabricated and tested. These cold wall will be integrated with advanced liquid-cooled heat exchanger and be designed to dissipate large amount of waste heat. A successful demonstration of a low-cost composite cold wall will significantly enhance our ability to design, fabricate and demonstrate an all-composite enclosure at affordable cost for both military and commercial applications.