Analysis of Highly Coupled Thermal-Structural Responses in Morphing Radiative Bodies

As the field of smart structures matures, a variety of active components are being explored. One example is a morphing radiator that uses shape memory alloys (SMAs) to actuate, thereby altering its geometric effectiveness. This device exhibits a high degree of thermomechanical coupling due to the active response of the shape memory alloy and the radiative heat transfer taking place on the surface of the radiator assembly. This paper presents and demonstrates a multiphysical finite element analysis-based framework capable of simulating general problems of this type. The framework decomposes the coupled behavior of the radiator into two separate but interacting analyses: one representing the structural response and one representing the thermal solution. Two example problems are provided in order to demonstrate the flexibility of the framework. Additionally, a reduced-order mathematical model is developed for one of the problems.

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