Speaker
Description
Thermal analyses are performed throughout the entire life cycle of a space project, from the first rough architecture trade-offs to the last in-orbit simulations.
In general, they consist in building a more or less complex thermal model, running different sizing cases and post-treating them. These activities are conducted by “thermal analysts” who are specialized in the different pre-post and solver tools, while “thermal architects” are responsible of the thermal design itself.
Although this organization has proven its value, its limitations arouse in the past years. Indeed, more and more complex and coupled designs are now necessary to overcome the future space products challenges such as high thermo-elastic stability in scientific programs, variable environments in constellations, or high power telecoms.
To address these new challenges, Airbus Defence and Space has developed a new tool called PASTA: Parametric Process Automation Software for Thermal Analysis.
PASTA is an in-house workflow manager which provides a “black-box” interface, enabling any user to launch any kind of thermal study, once settled by a thermal analyst. It is for instance possible to any project engineer to test a change of coating with no knowledge in the thermal tools. PASTA also enables an easier share of workload among analysts, because it is not necessary for them to understand the inner construction of the model when new studies are necessary. Finally, PASTA provides all usual design exploration tools to help find the best design solution or assess its robustness.
The presentation will describe the main PASTA features:
• GUI interface to capture:
o the workflow chain (model modification, solving, post-treatment)
o the parameters configuration (files, allowables, description)
o the user values to be applied (coatings and materials definition, study definition)
• Different studies can be defined:
o Custom (for sizing cases for instance)
o Sensitivity analyses
o Design of Experiments (Full factorial, Latin HyperCube)
o Optimisations
o Surrogate Models
o Robustness analysis (RSS, Monte Carlo)
• Compatible with Systema, Thermisol, NX but also any usual python or shell script
• Can be chained with other discipline post-treatments, for instance mechanical and optical for thermo-elastic end-to-end assessments
