AEROSPACE
Wing and Cockpit Lighting Enclosures
This is one of two enclosures I designed for a current-production fighter aircraft. It holds a power supply, backplane, and several stacked logic PCBs.
The design met rigorous weight and cost targets and passed all stress and thermal tests.
The critical fabrication choice was to use dip-brazing to join the five parts of the upper and lower sections, which allowed for minimum wall thicknesses and feature-rich interior surfaces for heat-sinking and efficient packaging. I previously used this technology in the design of a rugged laptop computer enclosure.
The second enclosure contained a much lower heat load, and we were able to minimize packaging weight by attaching the larger masses directly to the walls. We made best use of the dip-brazing technology to come up with a design that was extremely light and strong.
This project involved teams at locations on three continents - robust file revision control and active communication were critical.
I also have extensive experience with design for aluminum die casting.