Author(s)

W. J. Ding, W. Shan, Z. J. Wang, M. Liu

Abstract

The thermal regulation of a shroud has been widely applied in the thermal vacuum testing of spacecraft. The shroud is flooded with fluid, where the temperature is controlled to a specified range, so that the temperature of the test specimen can be changed with the shroud and maintained at a certain value as designed. A numerical model of temperature in the thermal regulation system is established and the heat transfer among fluids, the shroud and the test specimen are analyzed. A combination of heat radiation, heat conduction, and heat convection are realized based on the fuzzy control theory. When a test prototype is built, the test results show that the temperature range of the shroud can be steadily controlled between -75°C and 155°C, and the temperature of the test specimen can be stably controlled at any value in the range of -50°C–120°C. The over control of temperature is less than 1°C, and the temperature stability is less than ±0.5°C.

Keywords

shroud, numerical model, test specimen, thermal regulation