Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Procedia
Engineering

ProcediaProcedia
Engineering
00 (2011)
Engineering
29 000000
(2012) 1745 1749
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

2012 International Workshop on Information and Electronics Engineering (IWIEE)

Numerical Simulation about Thermal Environment of Solar

Energy Airship in Stratosphere
Yiran Wang a* , Yunxia Liu b

a
School of Computer Science and Technology, Zhoukou Normal University, Zhoukou, 466001, China
Department of mathematics and information science, Zhoukou Normal University, Zhoukou, 466001, China

Abstract
The article mainly uses solar-load-radiation model and UDF programs in FLUENT, comprehensively taking into
account influential factors of solar radiation, environmental temperature, wind speed, and constructs stratosphere
solar energy airship heat transmission model. It achieves temperature distributing situations via numerical simulation
for the process of exterior and interior heat-transfer and preliminarily acquires change principles of average
temperature of airship. These principles would provide references for flying and controlling of airship and lay a solid
foundation for research and manufacture of stratosphere airship.

2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Harbin University
of Science and Technology Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Keywords: Airship; Solar-load-radiation model; FLUENT; CFD; Temperature

1. Introduction
Solar energy airship of stratosphere[1] has extensive use in military and civil affairs and is the
emphasis in research of space aerocraft. Stratosphere is greatly affected by space environments, like
solar-radiation, earth-radiation, earth-reflection, atmospheric pressure, wind speed etc, but
solarradiation is the major factor. So it is necessary to research the influence of solar-radiation to near space
aerostats. Research of heat transfer model of airship platform[2] is the technique base for study the heat
transfer characteristic analysis . Correctly establishing various static and dynamic heat transfer model of
airship platform plays a significant role in the whole design for airship and use security. It is very difficult
for a large stratosphere airship to test heat transfer parameters, like thermal environment of real airship
platform, the radiation energy received by airship surface, interior gas temperature field, temperature
distribution on the body surface or in the equipment cabin. Considering the difficulty of practical test, the
*

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86- 0394-8178337.

E-mail address: wangyiran76@163.com.

1877-7058 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2012.01.206

1746

Yiran
Wang
and/Yunxia
LiuEngineering
/ Procedia Engineering
29 (2012) 1745 1749
Author
name
Procedia
00 (2011) 000000

article analyses and calculates the numerical value simulation of heat transfer process, creates the airship
heat transfer model by using solar- load-radiation model and UDF program in FLUENT, and gets the
temperature distribution situations.
2. Technique foundation of airship heat transfer model
2.1. Numerical simulation of hydromechanics
Computational Fluid Dynamics (abbreviation CFD)[3] can perform numerical computation and image
display by computer, and analyse some physical phenomena which contain fluid flow and heat
conduction. CFD is the combination of the modern hydromechanics, numerical mathematics and
computer science. It makes numerical simulation become an indispensable measure to resolve practical
hydromechanics problems as the rapid developments of computer hardware and more and more CFD
software naissance. The emergence of CFD general software package and its commercialization give a
big impetus to the engineering application popularization of CFD technique. At present, the general CFD
software which corners the market is FLUENT, CFX, PHOENICS and STAR-CD. FLUENT[4] is a kind
of common solver based on unstructured grid, which uses the finite volume method to find the solution to
the flow fields problems of incompressible flows and moderate compressible flows. It can be applied in
turbulent flow, heat transfer, chemical reaction, rotating flow and shocks. CFD software usually is
equipped with grid generation model and flow visualization model. The strongest and the weakest
capabilities of gird generation are one of the important criteria to measure the performance of CFD
software. Besides the gird generation model owned by CFD, there are some special grid generation
software such as ICEM-CFD, which can import various formats geometric files and generate grids fitting
to one hundred modern popular CFD solvers.
2.2. FLUENT heat transfer model
According to basic physical process and flow manner, heat transfer is classified into three types:
thermal conductivity, thermal convection and radiation. FLUENT contains all kinds of heat transfer
problems which are solved by joining or masking corresponding items in energy equation to take into
account related factor influence. When considering heat transfer problems in FLUENT, only to activate
corresponding physical model, give the condition of heat boundary and input the material characteristic of
controlling heat transfer , would it complete modeling process of heat transfer. Two different methods are
specially adopted in FLUENT to simulate natural convection phenomena[5] which are more complex
than generic heat transfer and convection problems. One method uses transient calculation to compute
density of closed area with initial pressure and temperature, and gets the quality in initial condition. Then
it begins to work iterative solution as time step and ensures conservation condition of initial quality. This
method is applied to the situation which the difference in temperature varies greatly. Second one uses
Boussinesq method to carry out the steady state calculation which needs user set an invariableness
temperature. The second method is suitable to the condition which the difference in temperature varies
small. In FLUENT, radiation serves as source term of energy equation for modeling, and radiation
transfer equation is used to calculate. FLUENT provides five radiation models to solve the heat transfer
problem and every model has its own special application area and service.
3. Solar-load-radiation model

Yiran Wang
andname
Yunxia
Liu / Procedia
Engineering
29 (2012)
1745 1749
Author
/ Procedia
Engineering
00 (2011)
000000

FLUENT provides solar-load-radiation model to simulate the influence of solar ray radiation. The
model contains two options: one is solar ray tracking and the other is DO radiation. The paper adopts the
solar ray tracking algorithm which is most effective and practical method to act solar-load as resource
term of energy equation. The ray tracking algorithm[6] is used to forecast direct irradiation heat flow
caused by incident solar radiation. The algorithm disposes of solar radiation as a ray which has solar
position vector and irradiation parameters. The ray is used to the wall and the boundary of entrance and
exit appointed by user. The concealed parts of all borderline surfaces and interior walls are confirmed
during the analysis of defilade between face and face, then the heat flow is calculated which generated in
borderline surface by solar radiation. The algorithm only includes boundary area abutted against flow area.
Heat flow produced by solar ray tracking algorithm can be coupled to the calculation of FLUENT
through resource term of energy equation. Heat resource is directly added into the borderline computation
element of every surface, and allocated to adjacent element according to the following sequence: shell
thermal conductivity element, solid element and flow element. User can get across the sequence and input
instructions in text users window to involve adjacent flow element in the course of solar-load
computation. Solar position vector and intensity can be input directly by user or solar calculator which
can compute these parameters. Direct or diffuse radiation parameters also be confirmed by UDF and
added to FLUENT by using some related options in Radiation Model panel.
UDF[7]means user defined function, and it can be dynamically linked FLUENT solver to improve its
performance. UDF is a user interface through which user can communicate with inner data of FLUENT
model. Subroutine can be programmed with C language. These subroutines are provided to compiler by a
series of macro-functions which begins with the word, Define. Compiler links dynamically with FLUENT
main program as appointed manner. The subroutine can get all the information of flow fields of current
iteration or time by calling pre-defining macro-function, subroutine, or global variable and amend some
flow variable or return given value according to pre-design algorithm.
4. Numerical simulation about thermal environment of solar energy airship in stratosphere
4.1. The model and parameters
The heat transfer mostly is convective because the flow speed of atmosphere is low in both sides of the
airship. So the density of physical properties adopts Boussinesq model for helium gas in airship.
Compared with all the calculation area, the thickness of airship thin-gauge skin surface and solar cell thinfilm is very thin, so it adopts thin walled model. For solar radiation, the heat transfer introduces DO
model and the solar ray tracking algorithm. As the calculating in the meridian hour, it adopts steady state
computation mode.
The following information is basic data of the example. The area of airship is at the stratosphere
bottom, and the altitude is 22 kilometers. The time was twelve clock at noon, june 22, 2010. The position
was located at 31 degrees North latitude and 131 degrees East longitude. The revised value of
atmospheric quality was 0.945. The atmosphere conditions were that: the top environments temperature
was 243K, the minimum was 193K and the average was 218.57K. Atmospheric pressure
stood 4050
2
3
pascal, atmospheric density was 0.0645Kg/m , radiant intensity was 1250 W/ m . The ratio of the
radiation emitted of cloud layer was 0.68, and the ratio of the radiation emitted of earth was 0.3. The
reflectivity of earth was 0.11. The wind speed separately was 2,6,10, and 14m/s. As airship needed
geostationary suspension, it would fly against the wind. The wind direction determines the airship
direction, so we assumed the wind was souther. Airship parameters are following: the airship is 180
meters long and 60 meters high. Its appearance is like water drop and its capacity is 517391 cubic meter.
The airship is filled with helium which weighs 6089Kg and its load is 27282Kg. Capsule material

1747
3

1748

Yiran
Wang
and/Yunxia
LiuEngineering
/ Procedia Engineering
29 (2012) 1745 1749
Author
name
Procedia
00 (2011) 000000

parameters are that: absorptivity is 0.33, exterior emissivity is 0.796 and interior emissivity 0.733, thermal
conductivity 2. Thin-film parameters are that: transformation is 8 percent, absorptivity is 0.85, exterior
emissivity is 0.8 and thermal conduction coefficient is 4.5. Calculation environment is that: The software
is ANSYS FLUENT which Version is 6.3.26. The calculation platform is Linux cluster system of high
performance. The system adopts 3 nodes, total 12 nucleus , for parallel computing with one iteration per
6 seconds. After 12000 times iteration, it meets the computation requirements and its residual error must
be less than 10E-10.
4.2. Computation setting process.
First, we use ICEM CFD to draw reseau and produce 1.9 millions grids. Then we need set up
computation parameters of FLUENT. We select conservation equation of energy, and then choose
turbulence model and solar-load-radiation model. We also need to appoint the material physical
properties in FLUENT. As the airship is filled with helium and flies in stratosphere, it needs to establish 2
kinds of gas material data. At the same time we require to found 2 kinds of solid materials which are the
capsule material of airship surface and the solar energy thin-film material. The next one is to set up
borderline conditions of every side. Then we require to regulate controls parameter of the solver. We
activate residual plotting so as to inspect calculation astringency and changing situation of precision.
Before iteration, we need to initialize the flow field. Then we set up iteration steps and let the FLUNT
compute these data. The following step is to check the results. We could see the process of convergence
by the residual plot in graphic window . The last step is to conserve the results. The definition of question
and calculation results are differently saved in CASE and DATA file so as to restart the analysis later.
5. The simulation result and analysis
During the foundation of airship solar radiation heat environment model, it simulated the surface and
interior thermal conduction process for airship at the 22km height at different wind speeds. It got the law
that the average temperature of airship surface and inside changes with wind speed. Fig.1 shows the
interior temperature of airship change chart. Fig.2 indicates the surface temperature of airship change
chart. Fig.3 shows the surface temperature of thin-film change chart.
From the analysis of temperature change charts above, the average temperature of thin-film, airship
surface and interior presents downtrend with the wind speed enhancement. But as the wind speed further
increased, downtrend becomes slow. It means that the cooling effect of wind speed for airship gradually
reduces. In the chart, the thin-film temperature is higher than airship bodys. So we must make the heat
insulation better between them. During the practical control of airship, it requires to adjust flight posture
in real time, control change of airship interior temperature, maintain the air pressure balance of inside and
outside of airship, and guarantee the normal flying according as the wind movement. Because the highest
temperature of skin reaches to 378K by day, the lowest temperature is 193K by night, and the difference
arrives at 85 Celsius degree. So the selected skin must be adopted lightweight, flexible, corrosionresistant, non-degradable and high strength multilayer fibre.
6. Conclusions
Through running FLUENT software, it calculates the situations of solar airship in stratosphere and
analyses the influencing factor for thermal environment. By the computation, we get the thermal field
distribution. Contrasted with the actual data collected from test, the simulation data basically keep
consistent and the margin of error was in 8 percent. During the research of simulation, we could find

Yiran Wang
and name
Yunxia/ Procedia
Liu / Procedia
Engineering
29 (2012)
1745 1749
Author
Engineering
00 (2011)
000000

some problems and optimize the model to make it suit to physical practice. In this way, we use the
method of numerical simulation to reduce greatly times of field experimentation, the development cost,
and the development cycle. The research lays a solid foundation for the analysis of thermal environment
of large stratosphere airship applied with aforementioned calculation model and change situations of
airship climb and descend.

the highest
temperature
the average
temperature
the lowest
temperature

temperature(K)

6
10
wind speed(m/s)

surface temperature of airship

the highest
temperature
the average
temperature
the lowest
temperature

370
temperature(K)

airship interior temperature

390
370
350
330
310
290
270
250

350
330
310
290
270
250

14

Fig.1 Interior temperature change chart

6
10
wind speed(m/s)

14

Fig.2 Surface temperature of airship change chart

surface temperature of thin-film

the highest
temperature
the average
temperature
the lowest
temperature

temperature(K)

370
350
330
310
290
270
250
2

10

14

wind speed(m/s)

Fig.3 surface temperature of thin-film change chart

References
[1] C Anthony, L D James. High-Altitude, Long-Endurance Airships for Coastal Surveillance. National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, USA, 2005, NASA/TM-2005-213427.
[2] Kenya Harada, Kunihisa EGUCHI, Masaaki SANO, Shuichi SASA Experimental Study of Thermal Modeling for
Stratospheric Platform Airships . AIAA's 3rd Annual Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations (ATIO) Tech 17-19
November 2003, Denver, Colorado. USA: AIAA 2003-6833.
[3] Fujun Wang: Analysis of computational fluid dynamics (Tsinghua University Press, China2004).
[4]Zheng Wen, LiangChen Shi , Yiru Ren: FLUENT fluid computation application course (Tsinghua University Press, China,
2009).
[5]Xiande Fang, Weizhi Wang , Xiaojian Li. Spacecraft Recovery and Remote Sensing Vol.28(2007), p.5
[6] Hong Jun Ran , Raid Thoms. A Comprehensive Global Model of Broadband DirectSolar Radiation for Solar Cell Simulation.
AIAA2007 - 33.
[7] Hong Shi, Baoyin Song , Qiuping Yao. Computer Simulation Vol.25(2008), p.56

1749
5