Lightweight composite materials for electronic enclosures

Military aircraft have forced extremely weight critical design requirements. The use of alternate lightweight materials has been desirable as a means of achieving these critical weight needs. In particular, lightweight composite materials for avionic equipment enclosures has been pursued as a means for reducing weight. A lightweight material was desired to fabricate the covers of an avionic electronics chassis. Lightweight protective covers would reduce the overall system weight. The material and fabrication method would have to meet several concurrent engineering design requirements. These included mechanical, electrical, environmental, manufacturing/producibility, and design-to-cost criteria. Many materials were evaluated and trade studies were performed in order to select a material which best fit or exceeded the concurrent engineering design requirements. For this application, lightweight composite materials would reduce weight 43% per shipset over traditional aluminum enclosures.