ROCKLEDGE, FL – November 24, 2008 – Mainstream Engineering Corporation, leading research, and development company specializing in advanced thermal control and energy conversion, has been awarded a contract from the Army to demonstrate a modular reconfigurable thermal system that will control the temperature of the electronics used for Army signal intelligence and electronic warfare devices.

As Army signal intelligence (SIGINT) and electronic warfare (EW) continue to evolve, significant improvements in thermal technologies at the device level have provided higher heat flux dissipation. However, researchers in charge of integrating the systems are hesitant to use these advanced cooling technologies because the solutions for thermal management need to be customized at the system level.

To solve this problem, Mainstream is demonstrating a modular reconfigurable thermal management system (TMS) that can acquire heat from both air-cooled and liquid-cooled SIGINT/EW components. The system will be able to be expanded to satisfy future phase-change-cooled electronics. The concept is applicable to both open-frame rack-mount systems and environmentally sealed enclosures. The system can also reject heat to vehicle air or be integrated with the vehicle cooling system.

During Phase I, Mainstream will design four modular cooling units and fabricate one cooling module for an environmentally sealed enclosure. System demonstrations will first be performed with representative loads for existing air-cooled and liquid-cooled modules, and then with future phase-change-cooled modules. During the Phase I optional period, Mainstream will fabricate two additional cooling modules and demonstrate the ability of the TMS to be reconfigured.

During Phase II, Mainstream will further optimize the cooling system and deliver a production-version system. This system will proceed directly to Mil-Std First Article Tests (FAT) in Phase III without any additional development or “tool-up” funds being required.