Numerical Simulation of the Air Cooling System for Scientific Payload Rack on a Space Station

Abstract

The space scientific payload rack is a multifunctional experimental platform, and the requirements of the environmental temperature index are different for diversified experimental modules inside. The air cooling system is an important part of the rack thermal control system. A new type of air cooling system with small size and flexible arrangement is proposed in this paper, that is, micro air ducts with pinhole-sized air vents. The rack physical models of new and traditional air cooling modes are established, respectively. The numerical simulation of the inner air flow is carried out by Ansys Fluent CFD software (Ansys Inc., Canonsburg, PA, USA), which verifies that compared with the traditional method, the temperature field and flow field of the new air cooling method are more uniform, and the heat sources located at the edge of the rack can also be cooled better.

Development of a method for assessing air dustiness in the main fairing of the launch vehicle

“…Minimization of scientific publications in this area is also due to the fact that in many cases satellites are commercial objects and the publication of materials related to the task of thermostating is closed. However, our review of open publications [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] on this topic made it possible to identify a number of issues that need to be improved.…”

“…In [18], the results of numerical modeling of the air flow velocity field in the main fairing at the location of different satellites are reported and the results of the numerical calculation and experiment are compared. The results of that work show the wide possibilities of the method of numerical modeling.…”

“…The dust concentration field, calculated based on dependences ( 17), (18), makes it possible to calculate the number of dust particles that «settled» on a particular surface of the satellite. To calculate the number of dust particles that have a size of more than 5 µm and fall on the horizontal surface, an empirical model is used [9]:…”