Thermal Interface Modeling and Experiments with Novel Multi-layer Structure in Modular Microsatellite

The thermal interface of a modular microsatellite can be equated to a multi-layer structure which is used to transfer heat between modules to maintain the temperature in a healthy range. To describe the heat transfer process at the thermal interface, an improved one-dimensional RC heat transfer model based on a thermal–electric analogy is proposed, considering both three complex heat transfer modes (heat conduction, radiation, and convection) and thermal contact resistance to describe the temperature variation at the thermal interface. Then, the temperature response of the novel thermal interface with five layers of materials is solved using step temperature boundary conditions, and the obtained temperature response is compared with the models considering only heat conduction. The comparison results show that the temperature prediction accuracy of the proposed model increased by 4.1%. Finally, experiments are designed and compared with the simulation results, which verify the validity of the proposed model.