EFFECTS OF MATERIALS ON THE DESIGN OF MECHANICAL HOUSING FOR SPACECRAFT ELECTRONIC PACKAGES

Abstract

The design of the mechanical housings involves trade-off between the electrical, mechanical, and environmental requirements of the mission for the electronic subsystem of spacecraft. The function of mechanical housings for electronics is to ensure its integrity and functionality during launch and on-orbit space environment in a spacecraft mission. These comprises of severe vibrations at the time of launch, considerable variations in temperature throughout the mission, and radiation degradation while in orbit. This study deals with design and analysis of the mechanical housings assembly for an electronic package used in a spacecraft. It mainly focuses on the static and dynamic behavior of electronic packages and behavior of printed circuit boards (PCBs) under harsh vibration environment with various boundary conditions imposed on them. The finite element model, of the mechanical housings assembly for the electronic package has been generated using UG-NX software by choosing different materials like Aluminum alloy AL6061, Magnesium alloy AZ31B and Beryllium-Aluminum alloy AM162, to predict the behavior of the assembly subjected to static and dynamic loading. Modelling and simulation of the entire packages have been done by choosing Aluminum alloy (Al6061), Magnesium alloy (AZ31B) and Beryllium-Aluminum alloy (AM162) by UG-NX software. Using this software, stress and displacement is evaluated at the critical locations by quasi-static analysis under 25g and 20g conditions and fundamental frequency is evaluated by normal mode simulation. Random mode simulation has been done to find out the transmissibility and Grms value on the package at the time of launch phase. From the simulation, it was observed that maximum displacement value of the critical locations of the package is least for Beryllium-Aluminum alloy (AM162) and also transmissibility and Grms value on the package is least for Beryllium-Aluminum alloy (AM162)