Customer Brief: Tippingpoint Technologies

TippingPoint Technologies hired M3 Design Inc. to help with the development of its network-defense appliances. M3 Design is a product development consultancy that offers mechanical engineering, industrial design, and electrical engineering services for the high tech, medical, and consumer products industries.

M3's experience in designing similar rack-mounted units led to early-stage concept reviews of various system architectures. Critical design features like rack size, EMI/EMC, airflow, serviceability, and fan selection were all identified at the onset of the project. One of the first critical steps in the project was to determine the proper size of enclosure to house the system's sensitive internal electronic components and investigate the airflow. Due to the small opening necessary for EMI confinement and the densely packaged electronics, a major concern was that sufficient airflow be distributed throughout the system.

Paul Tucker, M3 Design project manager and mechanical engineer, says M3 Design used CFdesign fluid flow and electronics cooling simulation software from Blue Ridge Numerics to evaluate the airflow in several different size enclosures. "We found CFdesign very helpful in studying the different architectures and weighing the pros and cons, different form factors, and airflow characteristics of each size enclosure," says Tucker.

Using CFdesign, M3 Design was not only able to complete the new design faster and under budget, but it was also able to assure its client of an effective final product. "By utilizing CFdesign in the initial phase of the project, TippingPoint avoided an architecture that, most likely, would have created thermal failures and forced a drastic product redesign to correct," says Tucker. "By avoiding a bad design concept, we were able to keep the mechanical development ahead of schedule and under budget."