Supplemental cooling for legacy aircraft avionics

Abstract

To increase the usefulness and effective life of existing tactical aircraft, advanced avionics upgrades are required. These legacy aircraft currently cool avionics and electronics with air as the coolant medium. The next generation of electronics will be densely packaged and will require liquid cooling, low coolant temperatures, and increased cooling capacities. Numerous advanced efforts have demonstrated that heat pump cooling systems offer a cost-effective solution that avoids the redesign of avionics modules or aircraft cooling systems. This paper will describe the design, development, and integration of an electrically-driven vapor cycle heat pump and its integration into the F-16 aircraft. This is an example of augmenting (versus redesigning) existing aircraft cooling systems, which then can provide liquid cooling for retrofit avionics.