Thermal Analysis in ANSYS®

Thermal Analysis of Large Antenna Structures

Figures Courtesy of Vertex Antennentechnik GmbH 

Your Contact Person: Dipl.-Ing. Thomas Iberer Tel. +49-(0)8092-7005-50 E-Mail tiberer@cadfem.de

Task Imagine the sunrise at the foothills of Chile's Andes mountains. The wind blows slowly through the dry Atacama desert…

This scenario isn’t based on the fantasy of a lonely adventurer but the given thermal load case for the design of one of the telescopes of the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) project. In corporation with VERTEX Antennentechnik GmbH a complex thermal analysis has been performed by CADFEM Consulting.

Due to the given specifications the antenna had to be analyzed considering sun radiation, outgoing radiation and of course the convective heat transfer to the environment. Taking into account the heat transfer effects

heat conduction heat convection heat radiation

it was possible to determine the temperature field of the antenna. Both steady state and transient analysis gives valuable information about the resulting thermal loads to the structure. Special care had to be taken into account for the laminated CFRP structure. By idealization of the CFRP material properties many simplifications could be done. As a special challenge the thermal analysis of the convective heat transfer part to the environment has been combined with a CFD analysis. Therefore also the wind influence onto the temperature field of the antenna has been computed.

The resulting temperature field can be used for subsequent structural analyses to determine thermal deformation or critical thermal stress zones.

Wind load for the determination of heat transfer coefficients

12m ALMA telescope

 FE Modell of the Structure  

Sun load at the structure