With every Kelvin increase in temperature, the risk of avionic component failure increases. For civil and military applications, the thermal characteristics of avionic components directly influence overall thermal management. They dictate the size, weight, and power (SWaP) of the cooling and therefore the overall system and can decide between function and failure. Commercial off-the-shelf components for avionic systems may cost less, but the lower price has to be weighed against SWaP and reliability to ensure the whole cooling system is viable.
This article demonstrates how thermal transient testing combined with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can help find this balance and ensure that safety critical devices work within their prescribed temperature limits.