Case Study: QRC Technologies achieves better thermal management and faster enclosure design with SimScale

QRC Technologies prevented thermal damage in its electronics design with SimScale

QRC Technologies, a Washington DC–based developer of RF test and measurement equipment, faced overheating in compact enclosures where hard drives reached ~50 °C and passive cooling with thermal pads proved inadequate. To optimize heat dissipation and fin geometry without costly trial-and-error prototypes, QRC used the SimScale cloud-based CAE platform, specifically SimScale’s thermal analysis feature, so simulations could run remotely without tying up local resources.

QRC implemented internal heat paths (copper slugs and graphite) and iterated several CAD fin orientations using SimScale to predict thermal performance before building hardware. By running four design iterations in about a week and validating the best design on a physical prototype, the team avoided 4–6 weeks of prototype testing, caught a worse-performing permutation early, and achieved a faster, cheaper cooling solution with results confirmed by SimScale-enabled simulation and physical verification.

QRC Technologies

David McCall

Senior Mechanical Engineer