Application of the Power Balance Method to E field calculation in the ARIANE 5 launcher payloads cavities

Abstract

The present paper reports the main results of a study the aim of which being to apply the Power Balance Method to the electric field calculation in the ARIANE 5 launcher cavities of the Payloads section and in the launcher avionics bay. Indeed, the use of this simple method, based on the application of the Poynting's theorem and on the statistical properties of electrically large cavities stimulated by high frequency sources, is the most efficient one in terms of computation time and high frequency limit with respect to numerical methods like 3D Finite Differences in the Time Domain for example.

Search for limits of complex cavity model by progressive simplification

“…In spite of these evolutions, the over-sized complex cavities theory can still be applied. The study [1] showed that the absorption of the electric field by a material or an object is directly proportional to the apparent surface. For these frequencies, the skin depth is small enough that the absorption is located on the external layer.…”

“…These conditions allow to obtain a homogenous and isotropic statistically field which can be defined by a Gaussian law according to two parameters: average power or average electric field and standard deviation which is the same for field's components. The validity of the method has already been verified for the upper part of Ariane 5 [1]. During this study, the lower bound of validity of the model has been verified but beyond 26 GHz the statistical distribution of the electric field seemed to move away from the theoretical law expected.…”

“…During the previous study [1] we showed that the mock-up used is like an over-sized complex cavity. That means that the field is statistically homogenous and isotropic.…”