Modeling of Highly Stable Thermal Environment Using COMSOL

A. Alfauwaz, and K. Sun
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Published in 2010

Precise physics experiments in space require highly stable thermal environments, especially if the experiments are targeted in earth orbits where eclipses will cast large temperature variation. We have been designing and modeling a thermal system with sub micro-kelvin stability using COMSOL. Our design is comprised of multiple alternative layers of conductive materials and vacuum isolations, with supporting spacers in between. To reduce the computation time, we have used 2d model to, and found that it produced more stringent design. We combine multiphysics models of heat transfer and structural mechanics to simulate the effects of both at the same time. We create different boundary conditions with range of temperature to assure the design capability to be in the range of 0.1 microkelvin stability and uniformity. Our model runs with different types of meshing methods and numerical solvers to compare their accuracy and computing time.

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