Military & Aerospace Electronics

computer thermal management system first may be installed aboard the America-class amphibious assault ship USS Bougainville (LHA- 8), which will be built at the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., and delivered to the Navy in 2024. Experts are exploring outfitting spaces aboard the Bougainville with electronics cooling systems mounted to the deck and bulkheads, and in the overhead.

Today’s standard computer racks and cabinets use side- and back-mounted fans and require a duct connected to the ship’s HVAC system to remove heat from shipboard computer rooms. Global Technical Systems has developed more efficient cooling for individual computer racks and cabinets using below-deck HVAC system supply air.

In the project’s first and second phases, Global Technical Systems developed a prototype air-cooled computer rack system, and established its feasibility with component testing and analytical modeling. Now the company will refine this prototype for realistic shipboard testing.

Not only will this system cool individual computer racks with shipboard air conditioning, but it also will control the supply of cool air to compensate for varying cooling demands. The system prototype will maintain existing computer rack size, shape, weight, and shock-mount effectiveness, and demonstrate reliability and performance that is better than current shipboard computer thermal-management approaches.

This approach could reduce the
need for new computer rack foun-
dations and HVAC ducting, and
help the Navy reconfigure on-board
electronics and computer spaces as
system updates and changes occur. It
could help eliminate large amounts
of HVAC ducting, reduce the need
to rebalance the HVAC system, and
reduce costs, Navy officials say.

FOR MORE INFORMATION visit Global
Technical Systems at http://gts.us.com.

TEST AND MEASUREMENT

Behlman to provide avionics
test equipment for Navy
weapons launchers

U.S. Navy aircraft weapons experts needed avionics test and measurement equipment for missile and weapons launchers aboard the F/A- 18 jet fighter bomber and other combat aircraft. They found their solution from Behlman Electronics Inc. in Hauppauge, N. Y.

Officials of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in Lakehurst, N.J., announced a $21.7 million contract to Behlman to build as many as 180 Common Aircraft Armament Test Sets (CAATS) and 100 Pure Air Generator System Adapter Sets (PAGS PAS). The CAATS/PAS helps test and troubleshoot U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and international military bomb racks, missile launchers, pylons and emerging weapons carriage devices across most aircraft weapons systems at the intermediate maintenance level.

Behlman will build weapons-launcher test and measurement equipment for the Navy and Marine Corps, as well as the militaries of Spain, Italy, Finland, and Kuwait.

The CAATS system tests rack
and launcher weapons interfaces off
the aircraft prior to the loading of
ordnance to ensure proper system
functionality and safety. The CAATS/
PAS replaces the legacy A/E37T-35A
The PAS interfaces with the
CAATS to test the LAU- 7 and LAU-
127 high-pressure, pure air gener-
ator (HiPPAG) weapons launchers.
It provides pressure test capability
to evaluate emerging pneumatic
pressure release launchers, such
as the Joint Miniature Munitions
Bomb Rack Unit.

The LAU- 7 air-to-air missile launcher carries and deploys the AIM- 9 heat-seeking missile and instrumentation pods on Navy and Marine Corps F/A- 18 fighter-bombers. The LAU-127 missile rail launcher, meanwhile, enables the F/A- 18 to carry and launch the radar-guided AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) and AIM-9X advanced heat-seeking missile.

The LAU-127 provides the electrical and mechanical interface between the AMRAAM and AIM-9X missiles and the F/A- 18 aircraft, as well as two-way data transfer between the missile and the aircraft’s cockpit controls and displays.