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Thermal Model CubeSat, not converged.
Posted 2010年1月17日 GMT-5 17:03 6 Replies
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We are working on a thermal model of a cubesat (nano satellite).
Well, imagine a hollow cube but his faces have thickness. Now imagine a little solid cube intro the other and in the middle. Well this is the 3D model.
We are using the “Heat Transfer Module 3D” each face have been irradiated with a different heat radiation, and have different emissivity. We have different condition at the same time for different faces, “surface to surface” and “surface to ambient”.
Well the objective is, take the temperature of the little solid cube.
But we have a problem, the solution is not converging.
Mesh:
The “mesh” is “Extremely coarse” because the RAM is not enough.
Solver Parameters:
The “analysis” is “stationary”.
Linearity -> Nonlinear
“Damped Newton” has a tick
“Highly nonlinear problem” has a tick
Solver Manager:
“Initial value expression” has a dot
“Use setting from initial value frame” has a dot
So the question is, How is possible that solution is not converging? And, What will we do to fix it?
Thanking you in advance for any tip about these issues you can give us.
Best Regards,
Luis
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Going back to your question here are some ideas that you may consider trying:
1- good initial guess is important for convergence of nonlinear problems, so if you can, make an educated guess at the answer and use this as initial conditions for starting the iterations
2- if you have enough RAM use a direct solver like UMFPACK
3- If nothing works, you may try running the problem as transient and let the solution "evolve" into the right steady state solution. This may take longer to solve but should have better convergence characteristics.
Please let me know how your troubleshooting turns out
Thanks,
Ozgur
Hello my name is Luis.
We are working on a thermal model of a cubesat (nano satellite).
Well, imagine a hollow cube but his faces have thickness. Now imagine a little solid cube intro the other and in the middle. Well this is the 3D model.
We are using the “Heat Transfer Module 3D” each face have been irradiated with a different heat radiation, and have different emissivity. We have different condition at the same time for different faces, “surface to surface” and “surface to ambient”.
Well the objective is, take the temperature of the little solid cube.
But we have a problem, the solution is not converging.
Mesh:
The “mesh” is “Extremely coarse” because the RAM is not enough.
Solver Parameters:
The “analysis” is “stationary”.
Linearity -> Nonlinear
“Damped Newton” has a tick
“Highly nonlinear problem” has a tick
Solver Manager:
“Initial value expression” has a dot
“Use setting from initial value frame” has a dot
So the question is, How is possible that solution is not converging? And, What will we do to fix it?
Thanking you in advance for any tip about these issues you can give us.
Best Regards,
Luis
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Well, let me say you that, it is my first work with comsol so I don’t know the correct answer for your problem. But I have been thinking it. Did you try making only the part of the model that you want? I mean, the symmetric part, maybe is foolishness.
Well, now let me tell you how I did to this stuff works. In “htug.pdf” in pag 135 (from the pdf) or in pag 126 (from the document). ”First, with enough experience you can set up the mesh yourself in the Mesh Parameters dialog box”
So, I kept the “Extremely coarse” but I refine the mesh of the internal box, (“Free Mesh Parameters” -> “Subdomain” -> “Maximum element size” = 0.005.) I guess that was luck.
The solver UMFPACK works too, thanks!!
The option 3) I couldn’t make it works. It is not converged
But now I have a lot of other problems.
1) In the COMSOL's “Heat Transfer User Guide” it says that the emissivity and absorptivity are equal. But they don’t make difference with the radiation spectrum. So how can I make this deferens?
2) How can I spin the cubesat in COMSOL? I mean, I want simulate the spin of the cubesat and the interaction with the radiation. The radiation is different in the time and in the space coordinal. I think that this have a relationship with the fact that I want see the temperature behave of one parte of the model and not the “steady-state”
Thanking you in advance for any tip about these issues you can give us.
Best Regards,
Luis
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e=a and independence of e from wavelength are common assumptions made in the formulation of all but the most sophisticated radiation models. I don't know if you can modify this and make e wavelength-dependent in COMSOL. I would ask COMSOL support.
As far as spining the cubesat, your options are
1- spin the irradiation source i.e. calculate how irradiation will look like with time and impose it as a time varying boundary condition
2- it might be possible to use ALE formulation and prescribe a rigid body rotation to make the cubesat spin
hope this helps
Ozgur
But now I have a lot of other problems.
1) In the COMSOL's “Heat Transfer User Guide” it says that the emissivity and absorptivity are equal. But they don’t make difference with the radiation spectrum. So how can I make this deferens?
2) How can I spin the cubesat in COMSOL? I mean, I want simulate the spin of the cubesat and the interaction with the radiation. The radiation is different in the time and in the space coordinal. I think that this have a relationship with the fact that I want see the temperature behave of one parte of the model and not the “steady-state”
Thanking you in advance for any tip about these issues you can give us.
Best Regards,
Luis
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Thanks
The point 1), well i'm working on it.
The point 2), I'm studing it.
About the e=a I’ll try ask it to the Comsol´s support.
Let me explain the situation.
The cubesat have two heat situations. 1- The day (x seg) and 2- the eclipse (y seg).
In The day the cubesat has some faces with a determinate heat inward, and in the eclipse it has other faces with other radiation.
With transient analysis I make the simulation with this time (0, (x+y)/100, x+y) and works. Here I use in the boundary condition’s “q” something like that (G1*(t<x) + G2(t>y)). But this is one period.
I want to repeat the simulation in the time, eg: (0, (x+y)/100, 10(x+y)) -> 10 periods
And in the “q” of the boundary conditions look like
[G1((t<x) + (y<t<2x) + (2y<t<3x) ….) + G2((x<t<y) + (2x<t<2y) + (3x<t<2y)… )] and so long.
Has Comsol got something more automatic for this? I don’t know maybe a kind of “FOR” or a periodic “0” “1” function with variable duty cycle.
The reason for this is that I want to see the evolution in time of a point’s temperature.
Thanking you in advance for any tip about these issues you can give us.
Best Regards,
Luis
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Well I know from experience that when you put to many step functions (with abrupt steps) the solver has problems on the jumps, I often smoothen them with a heaviside function (search for heaviside on the doc files), this often helps.
I agree too that it becomes tedious to write out 10 periods, but you can also build functions and use these, this I have seeen that it will be better systematised in the "to come" V4
Good luck
Ivar
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Luis
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