SBIR-STTR Award

Global Technical Systems (GTS), prime contractor and lead design agent for the Common Processing System (CPS) offers innovative research and development for the cooling of electronic enclosures to the Navy in response to the need for an Improved, Flexible Infrastructure Compatible, Open-Loop Air-Cooled Computer Rack/ Cabinet. Traditional cooling methods for enclosures rely on liquid based heat exchangers and/or local fan assemblies to force air through components. Typical air cooled arrangements intake air from compartments in which they are located and return warmer air into the housing space. Conversely, closed loop liquid cooled enclosures make use of radiators to dissipate heat. Both approaches have detrimental impact to available rack space utilization for computing equipment and introduce unnecessary failure points. This proposal seeks to leverage the Flexible Infrastructure (FI) advancements developed for new ship construction that permit compartment reconfiguration while reducing energy consumption and lifecycle costs. The proposed Phase I study will analyze approaches to integration of the Advanced COTS Enclosure (ACE) with FI, and evaluate resulting design changes. Efforts will determine worst case heat dissipation and utilize the CPS payload to apply the innovative air cooled concept to characterize an active dampening system recommendation for prototype development in Phase II.

Benefit:
More efficient cooling methods expected from this SBIR effort will reduce energy consumption and equipment downtime due to overheating and increase the life of computing components resulting in higher availability and lower lifetime cost. GTS anticipates innovations that come from this SBIR effort will enable Flexible Infrastructure improvements in HVAC to advance IT infrastructure efficiency and performance while reducing cost across numerous Navy platforms, DoD and Federal Agency installations, and commercial enterprise IT infrastructures. Our innovations will include a flexible design approach appropriate for different physical environments (shipboard, permanent installations and mobile land-based systems).

Keywords:
Thermal Mitigation, Thermal Mitigation, Flexible Infrastructure, differential pressure cooling flow, ISO 7166 Advanced COTS Enclosure, mission critical cooling, Common Processing System (CPS), cross platform computing, dampening system

This Phase II proposal seeks to leverage previously developed Flexible Infrastructure (FI) concepts and support development of innovative technologies to address ONR mission area interests including energy storage and power delivery for “High Energy Weapons and Sensors” (HEWS), other high energy systems, and Next Generation Integrated Power Systems (NGIPS).Building on previous SBIR developments, GTS will apply FI innovations to conduct research, analysis, requirements definition and refinement of their existing flywheel-based energy storage and power delivery system to support ONR interests. Requirement definition and design analysis will specifically address necessary technical elements of shipboard integration and marinization of a multi-flywheel-based solution for combatant ship deployment. Elements include system design definition for HEWS power delivery including pulse load profiles, energy storage, voltage interfaces for shipboard and weapons input and output power, slew rates, rotational speeds, safety and containment, thermal control, reliability, maintainability, shipboard environment and integration. This effort will deliver requirements analysis, design and design feasibility demonstration through simulation of a Flexible Infrastructure Flywheel Energy System (FIFES).