Avionics passive cooling with microencapsulated phase change materials

Analysis for an avionics application typical of remotely located intermittently operated avionics on aircraft and missiles show that a large weighs reduction (about 9:1) can be obtained by using recently developed microencapsulated phase change materials technology instead of a solid aluminum plate for a passive heat sink. Tests with a configuration based on the typical avionics application used for analysis show good agreement with analysis. Use of microencapsulated rather than bulk phase change materials avoids a number of design problems previously encountered with application of such materials.