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We have use CORATHERM (Aérospatiale Cannes thermal software) capabilities to build a Thermal -> Mechanical interface and then to provide thermo-elastic inputs. Spacecraft thermal control CORATHERM model and spacecraft mechanical finite element mesh are the inputs of the interface. Temperature distribution calculation for finite element thermal loading does not come from a simple conductive interpolation but is the result of a method (“Equivale method”) which complies with thermal equations (radiative and conductive coupling). We have used this interface for a whole spacecraft (ARABSAT III) and we get temperature distribution for all panels and webs, on both sides, for various orbital positions.

One way to increase thermal software performance has been developed at AEROSPATIALE Cannes by means of a condensation algorithm for conductive models (EQUIVALE). The benefit of this improvement is exportable to other software packages by developing specific interfaces. Therefore, two gateways are now available to perform ESATAN conductive models condensation: the first (ESAEQU) translates the initial ESATAN input deck into the different files required by EQUIVALE; the second (EQUESA) generates a new ESATAN input deck including the equivalent conductances provided by EQUIVALE. Three examples of application are described hereafter: the first (RADIATOR PANEL) illustrates the condensation processing coupled to ESATAN, the second (TV-SAT/TDF), more realistic, refers to a flight model in the frame of the AEROSPATIALE Thermal Software environment and the third (TÜRKSAT) shows the optimum use of EQUIVALE with the combination of both PLATEAU and EQUIVALE software packages.