Heat is becoming a big problem with modern electronic cockpit technology, says Meggitt.
Gerry Janicki, Meggit's business development and marketing director, says the density of command, control, communications and computing information systems being packed into aircraft means cooling systems have now become “mission critical”.
“Electronic cards – single-board computers - are the problem,” Janicki says. “Military aircraft and vehicles designed in the Reagan era are being packed with more powerful devices that control everything from modern avionics to better braking systems and emitting significant heat in spaces that weren’t designed to accommodate them.
“Each single-board computer can generate up to 300 watts. A person can generate about 150 watts. So if you are in a small cockpit or a small crew area in a vehicle and you have a six-card box, it could be like bringing twelve of your buddies along with you. That would be very, very warm.”
Meggitt says that dissipating this much heat using convection - blowing air over components with a fan – just doesn't work. “Liquid cooling is the way forward,” says Janicki, who adds that Meggit first introduced liquid cooling systems on the Mcdonnell Douglas F4 Phantom.
Its liquid flow electronic cooling enclosures dissipate heat efficiently and are portable, with quick release connectors and fasteners for line replacement. The precision coolers each have 1kW of active cooling capacity - twice as much as competing products for the same consumption of weight and space.
“If you want to put in, say, a radio upgrade, but there’s no integrated cooling system, you can use the combination of our card box and a stand-alone cooling unit, concludes Janicki. Meggitt's coolers are also suitable for UAVs operating up to 70,000ft.
Source: Flight International
