Analysis on heat dissipation characteristics of arrayed tile-type Digital Transmit/Receive Modules

A tile-type Digital Transmit/Receive Module (DTRM) is a compactly designed DTRM, which is a core part in active phased-array digital radar systems. Due to a compact design, special care must be taken to ensure its thermal stability. In order to investigate the heat dissipation characteristics, multiple tile-type DTRMs that have thermal contacts with cold plates were modeled with simplification, including primary heat sources and heat removal paths, and conjugate heat transfer analysis was performed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Most of the heat was removed by cold plates via heat conduction, resulting in a stable temperature range in lower layers of DTRMs. External air flow outside the DTRMs played a partial role in heat dissipation of the components located in upper layers of the DTRMs. Thermal effects that originate from the clustered distribution of heat sources were negligible in the lowest layer of DTRMs due to direct contacts with cold plates, but relatively significant in the upper layers. Securing a stable heat dissipation path of upper layers seems to be a crucial factor in designing tile-type DTRMs for their use in large antenna systems.