Passive thermal management of outdoor enclosures using PCM and enhanced natural convection

In many telecommunications applications, switching/signal processing equipment is continuously increasing in capabilities, and more importantly, heat dissipation. The problem starts at the board/subcomponent level and grows to the system level. The equipment often must be housed in enclosures that more often than not will be placed outdoors. The housed equipment generates heat that must dissipated while keeping the air temperature inside the cabinets within prescribed limits for optimum performance. Thermal management of all telecommunications systems, thus, becomes of primary importance for any telecommunications operation. This paper describes the thermal management of outdoor enclosures (from small to large sizes) that house telecommunications equipment using the combination of phase change materials and enhanced natural convection devices