Most front-to-rear cooled chassis platforms in the market have tube-axial fans in the rear of the enclosure, pulling the air in an inefficient S-pattern. The RiCool approach uses
powerful air-pulling RiCool fans placed directly above the boards in the card cage. With fans that pull in one axis (to the top of the chassis) and blow the air out in another axis (through the rear of the chassis), the air bends to reach the fans are cut in half. This reverse-impeller configuration reduces the backflow of the air and the backpressure that hampers performance.
The reverse impeller approach creates up to 191 CFM per fan and 3.6" (H20) of static pressure. By comparison, the tube-axial approach generates only about 0.22"-0.40" (H20) of static pressure. Best of all, the front-to-rear cooling approach of the RiCool chassis allows the use of full RTMs (Rear Transition Modules). So, you can have up to 16 slots of OpenVPX with full RTMs. The 2000W chassis is available in versions for 3u or 6U (or mix-match) boards. A 4000W taller version is also available -- ask Pixus for details.
The standard tube-axial cooling configuration can work for many embedded system applications. However, for high-power systems, as many OpenVPX applications are trending, having powerful and hot-swappable RiCool reverse-impeller blowers is an excellent option.