Comparison of the aluminum and nanocomposite materials in terms of thermal performance for manufacturing an avionics box

Avionics systems are structures that form the basis of the electronic structure of flight, in which elements such as sensors, cabling, processors are integrated with each other in small volumes. In this study, the thermal analysis of the Vapor Grown Carbon Fiber (VGCF) nanocomposite material added in the epoxy matrix in terms of the thermal performance of the avionic boxes was performed and a comparison of thermal characterization properties of the currently used aluminum materials was carried out. When the two materials are compared in terms of thermal conductivity it can be is seen that while the thermal conductivity coefficient of aluminum is 150-190 W/mK, the thermal conductivity of VGCF with epoxy matrix is 695 W/mK. The analysis carried out consists of four stages. In the first stage, the thermal performances of the two materials were compared without using an external cooling system, provided that the elements that cause heat generation are placed homogeneously inside the box and an equal thermal load is applied to the inner walls of the box. In the second stage, in addition to the homogeneous thermal load distribution, calculations were made using an external cooling unit. In the third stage, instruments that cause heat generation are gathered on a single wall and the condition in which the thermal load is concentrated on this wall is analyzed. In the last stage of the analyses, in addition to the third stage, an external cooling unit was integrated into the system on the same wall and analyzes were run. Based on the results obtained, the thermal performances of the materials that might serve as a model for the use of new generation polymer materials in avionic boxes were compared. As a result of the analyzes made, it was observed that if VGCF nanocomposite was preferred instead of aluminum as the avionic box material, an improvement of 16.7% was achieved in terms of temperature values for the conditions of using a cooling unit under homogeneous load distribution conditions. In the condition where the thermal load is concentrated on a single wall and the cooling system is used, it has been observed that there is an improvement of 8.1% in temperature output. Thus, it is foreseen that energy efficiency will be improved with the use of light and high-strength materials, which are considered as most important goals of the aviation industry.