Boundary conditions treatment strategies for black-box objects thermal modeling using thermal response function method

Abstract

Thermal modeling of ‘black-box’ objects is extremely challenging due to unknown internal structures and thermophysical properties, and hence all traditional methods fail. The Thermal Response Function Method (TRFM) offers a unique way to address the challenge, predicting the surface temperature field based on a measurable quantity, i.e., thermal response function (TRF), which serves as the essential input thermophysical parameter. In this work, we extend the TRFM to handle arbitrary thermal boundary conditions, including prescribed temperature, convection, radiation, and their combinations, by developing a set of boundary treatment strategies. The proposed method is validated through both benchmark test cases and a realistic in-orbit satellite case involving complex geometry and mixed boundary conditions, confirming the accuracy and general applicability of the proposed approaches. This work completes the theoretical framework of the TRFM and thus makes it a powerful tool for the thermal modeling of objects with unknown internal geometry and physical properties.