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US-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) has partnered with Australia’s Conflux Technology on the development of a heat exchanger. Conflux is an additive manufacturing applications company operating out of Geelong that specialises in thermal and fluid engineering.
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The part is being developed using a metal additive manufacturing process for possible integration onto GA-ASI’s line of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS).
“GA-ASI and Conflux are developing novel and state-of-the-art thermal solutions for application to our existing and next generation RPAS. This will allow enhanced endurance and lower manufacturing cost, as well as more flexibility in our product design and integration,” said Linden Blue, GA-ASI chief executive.
To this end, Conflux is providing design expertise, looking to optimise additive manufacturing heat exchangers to increase the performance of remotely-piloted aircraft.
“Fundamental efficiency gains require heat transfer innovations. In Conflux we have a highly innovative engineering team that blends first principles thermo-fluid dynamics with design creativity and additive manufacturing process expertise,” said Michael Fuller, Conflux Technology CEO.
“Conflux heat exchangers derive their performance from highly complex geometries enabled by additive manufacturing. Our scientists and engineers, alongside their GA-ASI counterparts, will now develop heat exchange applications to improve fundamental efficiencies for GA-ASI’s RPA systems.”
The Australian government recently selected GA-ASI’s MQ-9B SkyGuardian variant as the armed RPAS selected for the Australian Defence Force under Project AIR 7003. In choosing MQ-9, Australia joins other partner nations including the US and the UK. Multi-role combat performance and ability to support ad-hoc communications networks and ally interoperability.
MQ-9B follows the legacy of GA-ASI’s Predator series of RPAS, which General Atomics calls "the world’s most trusted and capable armed medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) RPA Systems".
GA RPAS have seen deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the combined fleet has accumulated more than 6 million flight hours to date. The MQ-9 is larger and heavier than predecessors, including the MQ-1 Predator.
