Spacecraft Thermal Analysis Using THERMICA V4

SND503 - Spacecraft Thermal Analysis Using THERMICA V4

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Thermica was designed by spacecraft thermal engineers and is one of the most comprehensive spacecraft thermal design tools available in the industry today. Whether you are currently using Thermica or other software for your spacecraft thermal design, you will gain information about these new tools that could increase your productivity.

 

Thermica is a comprehensive spacecraft thermal design system that transparently incorporates the MSC Sinda thermal analyzer into a powerful state-of-the-art graphical user environment. Thermica version 4 is a major upgrade to the previous versions of Thermica that have been used for more than two decades on dozens of major space programs. V4 has a completely new GUI that runs in Windows, Linux and other workstations as native code and graphics. This new user interface has a Windows XP look and feel and is easy and intuitive to learn. The new model builder has links to CAD and Nastran and a powerful new shape based meshing tool. Photo-like animations of spacecrafts traveling to and orbiting other texture mapped planets can be viewed interactively and recorded as movie files. Results such as temperature, heat fluxes and view factors can be graphically visualized on these animations and also in interactive 2D plots. Powerful kinematic motion such as deployment of solar arrays and arbitrary moving surfaces can be modeled. Missions to the moon, Mars and other planets can be completely simulated using time-position-velocity data from external codes such as Satellite Tool Kit (STK).

Length: 
3 days
Pre-requisites : 
N/A
Topics: 

Day 1 – Overall Process Flow of Thermica V4 and Model Building


•Understanding the process flow of V4 from model building, meshing, orbit setup, kinematic motion, mission setup, Sinda model generation and basic post processing.
•Model building process in V4.
•Using CAD files for building models.
•Using Nastran files for model building and exporting Thermica models to Nastran.


Day 2 – Orbit Setup, Kinematic motion and Mission Setup

•Orbit definition including using external data from STK to define these.
•Kinematic motions with moving bodies and arbitrary motions such as solar panels deploying.
•Mission setup where a model, mesh, orbit and motion are put together. Real time animations and mission viewing options will also be explored.


Day 3 – Sinda model creation, post processing and advanced features

•Computing radiation exchange factors and orbital heating.
•Generation of a Sinda thermal model.
•Accuracy checks on ray tracing runs.
•Post processing of temperatures, view factors and orbital heating using 3D animations of the spacecraft and planets.
•Recording animations as standard or High Definition (HD) movies.
•2D interactive plotting of temperatures, view factors and orbital heating.