General Atomics Partners Conflux Technology

San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) has partnered with Australia-based Conflux Technology on the development of a heat exchanger. The part is being developed using a metal additive manufacturing (AM) for possible integration onto GA-ASI’s line of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS), the company informed.

“GA-ASI and Conflux are developing novel and stateof-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 CEO.

Conflux Technology is an AM applications company based in Geelong, Victoria, that specializes in thermal and fluid engineering. Conflux is providing design expertise in the optimization of AM heat exchangers to increase the performance of RPAS.

“Fundamental efficiency gains require heat transfer innovations. In Conflux, we have a highly innovative engineering team that blends first principles thermofluid 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 GAASI’s MQ-9B SkyGuardian variant to provide the armed RPAS for the Australian Defense Force (ADF).