Thermal Design Guidelines for High-frequency and

High-power Avionics
Qin Luo, Sujuan Zhang, Hantian Gu, Guicui Fu
School of Reliability and System Engineering
Beihang University
Beijing, China
luoqin5492143@sina.com

Abstract—Avionic equipments, which are vulnerable to airborne
radar, radio and other sources of human disturbance, always
work in complex electromagnetic environment. Therefore, the
structure level segregation and protection methods
significant. However, the thermal pathway of avionic equipments
with high power losses can be prolonged by electromagnetic
compatibility measures inevitably because of the supererogatory
thermal resistance. To solve these problems, some guidelines for
thermal design of high-frequency and high-power avionic
equipments are presented in this paper. Additionally, to evaluate
the usefulness of the thermal control guidelines, numerical
simulation and physical experiment method are both carried out
in the case study. The results showed that the guidelines
presented in this paper were necessary and valid, and can be
used as the reference for thermal design of similar avionic
equipments.
Keywords-Avionic equipments; high-frequency; high-power;
thermal design guidelines
I. INTRODUCTION
With the continuous improvement of equipment
performance of airborne electronic equipment, the heat flux
will also rise. At the same time, the problem of
electromagnetic interference has become increasingly acute [1,
2]
. In order to ensure on-board electronic equipment to work,
some EMC measures were adopted, such as grounding,
shielding and filtering. But considering the electromagnetic
compatibility, these measures taken may affect the cooling
requirements. For example: avionics will have more complex
structure, longer heat path, greater resistance and a series of
thermal design problems. Taking into consideration of the
electromagnetic compatibility and thermal design, it usually
meets the requirements of one side at the expense of the other
are side.
Internal high-frequency and high-power airborne
equipment often contain a large number of interference
sources, which produce electromagnetic fields and the
sensitive parts of the equipment may be vulnerable to damage.
Shielding measures need to be taken. But the measures make
thermal resistance increased. It is not conducive to heat
dissipation. When layout the components, the devices, which
related with functions, should be as close as possible in order
to get a good anti-interference effect. , However, further
measures should be considered during the thermal design if
the big-power devices are form a high-temperature region.
In order to prevent interference between components, the
components with different frequencies need to be shielded by
metal shielding shell, or separated by using space separation
methods. These measures make the heat shield path of the
components change from components ÆPCB Æ chassis wall
Æ environment, into components ÆPCB Æshielded
enclosure chassis wallÆ chassis wallÆ environment.
Thermal resistance increases.
Due to the electromagnetic compatibility constraints, the
chassis must be sealed. Structural characteristics of sealed
enclosure limited the choices of cooling modes. For example,
chassis can not be used with fan-assisted cooling and other
traditional methods [3, 4].
EMC design of these measures will give some impact on

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thermal design. These issues are analyzed and the
corresponding thermal design guidelines are put forward in
this paper. And the thermal design guidelines are verified by
the integrated use of numerical simulation and experimental
thermal measurement method.
II. THERMAL DESIGN GUIDELINES
Considering the effect of EMC, the thermal design
guidelines for high-frequency and high-power avionic
equipments are presented as follows in this paper:
A. Equipment must be sealed structure.
B. Two thermal control methods can be chosen: natural
cooling or forced air flow cooling.
C. In order to meet the requirements of thermal and
electromagnetic compatibility, choose aluminum as the
shielding material.
D. Device’s package must be with good thermal stability.
E. Without affecting the other conditions, try to use low
power devices.
F. High power loss device surface should be black or
aluminum powder coating spray.
G. Thermal conductivity blocks, heat pads or heat sink
cooling devices should be added on high-power loss
devices, furthermore high-power loss devices should be
installed in the chassis shell or bottom of the device.
H. High power loss components should add cooling plate or
heat sink [3].
I. Choose EMI source with metal packaging, or shield or
isolate EMI source.
J. High power loss components away from each other, or
close to the outer case.
K. Components of different operating frequency should be
shielded with metal shield case.
L. Taking the impact of electromagnetic compatibility into
account, uniform distribution of power inside the chassis
is to prevent the formation of high-temperature region.
M. Thermal control programs should meet
requirements.
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N. Establish the whole thermal analysis model to calculate
the temperature of the device components [4, 5], and check
the components of the junction temperature. If not meet
derating requirements, further improvements are needed.
III. CASE APPLICATION
A. Device structure
Aerospace electronic equipment geometry is 420 mm ×
230 mm × 230 mm with total power consumption of 228W.
The working environment temperature is 70ć. There are 14
internal components in the device, including large power
components 6, 7, 11, 12. Components 7 and 12 are
high-frequency components, while components 6 and 11 are
the low frequency components.
B. Thermal Design
Combined with thermal design guidelines Appeal A, B, C,
the chassis is sealed and the material is aluminum. The main
heat of the device is transmitted to the chassis from both sides
of the PCB, and heat exchange with the environment. So
select both sides of the chassis as a cooling surface. Heat flux
of the equipment on both sides of the surface is 0.12W/cm2,
less than 0.31W/cm2, greater than 0.07W/cm2. In forced
air-cooled heat flux range, take forced air cooling as the
thermal control method.
Components 4 and 5 contain many sources of interference.
According to the criteria I, it has to be shielded with metal
shell. Seamless aluminum shield shielding effect is far greater
than any electronic equipment for shielding requirements (120
~ 140dB). The greater the thickness of the shell, the higher the
shielding effect. Heat dissipation is more difficult. The 1mm
[6, 7]
shell has been able to provide adequate shielding , so on
the basis of greater than 1mm, it can heat design the metal
shielding enclosure.
In order to prevent interference between components,
Combination of criteria K and G, The PCB with Sensitive
devices are coupled with a metal shield case; for large power
device, add heat block in the corresponding component
location of the metal shield. Fill the gap with heat pad
between the device and thermal conductivity block when
installed. Component with metal shell, added thermal
derating
912
conductivity block, and the structure profile is shown in
Figure 1
Figure 2 ‡’‡”ƒ–—”‡…‘–‘—”•
No additional shielding shell of PCB also takes
appropriate cooling measures and power-hungry components
to add radiator and the corresponding thermal block.
Combined with thermal design guidelines for J and L,
components 11, 12 of large power consumption should be
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Figure 1.
Profile of the component structure
separated. Taking into account the electromagnetic
compatibility requirements, the high frequency components
and low frequency components should be separated.
Combined with thermal design guidelines for N, a CFD
®
model was built by FloTHERM software tools. Numerical
simulation usually consists of several parts: the establishment
of CFD models, parameter setting, meshing and solution. The
result is shown in Figure 2:
With design criteria M and N, it can be seen that the
overall temperature of the chassis is available to meet the
requirements. High temperature devices can be found, and
further improvements are needed in heat dissipation.
External device component LY is with significantly higher
temperature. With design criteria G and L, the high
temperature component devices with a metal shielding
enclosure should use thermal conductivity block heat transfer,
the device's thermal channel change from components Æ PCB
Æ shielded enclosure Æ chassis wall Æ environment, into
components Æ shielded enclosure Æ chassis wall Æ
environment. It is more conducive to heat dissipation and also
can be directly installed in the chassis wall. After changing the
location of the device LY, the temperature is reduced from
104ć to 70ć, while to avoid the formation of a high
temperature, the temperature of the device ke is reduced from
120ć to 86.1ć. Temperature results are shown below:
913
 Figure 3 Before improvement Figure 5 Initial temperature

Figure 4 After improvement Figure 6 Temperature contours after improve

Component 11 is a high temperature device whose C. Experimental verification

maximum temperature is 123ć. Combined with thermal
design guidelines for G and M, add thermal block in the
corresponding position to improve the device's thermal path.
The improved device temperature is dropped significantly
which can meet derating requirements. Temperature results
are shown below:
After getting the prototype ˈ the heat measurement
experiment is carried out in order to further verify the
practicality of design criteria and make the results of thermal
analysis accurate.. The comparison of thermal measurements
and numerical simulation are shown in Table ǿ. (Ambient
temperature is 70ć)

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 TABLE I COMPARISON OF THERMAL MEASUREMENTS AND are used. The environment of electronic equipment has
NUMERICAL SIMULATION become increasingly complex, and electromagnetic
compatibility issues are increasingly prominent [8]. Combined
Results of Thermal
Module Error with high frequency high power avionics features, the
Location Thermal Stress
Names ˄%˅ corresponding thermal design guidelines are presented in this
Measurement Analysis ®
paper. Use numerical simulation with FloTHERM software
front Chassis inside 53.1 56.7 6.78
tools to find the devices, which do not meet the derating
wall Outside 54 56.5 4.63
requirements, and take measures for them. Simulation results
top wall The inside 57.9 60.4 4.32
also verify by means of heat measurement experiment. The
9 outlet 52.7 52.4 0.57
results show that the proposed thermal design guidelines are
5outlet 48 50.8 5.83
good to meet the high-frequency large-power avionics design
1 outlet 47.9 49.4 3.13
outlet requirements and can also provide some reference for future
11 outlet 51.7 53.8 4.06
similar avionics thermal design.
3outlet 44.2 47.8 8.14
7outlet 53.9 58 7.61 REFERENCES
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