Thermal modeling of CIIIASat nanosatellite: A tool for thermal barrier coating selection

•Thermal study of CIIIASat nanosatellite is presented.•Different thermal barrier coatings were selected for thermal analysis.•Results of numerical code and finite difference method are evaluated.•The beta angle is the main orbital parameter that influence the satellite’s temperature.•Temperatures obtained in the numerical study are within the typical ranges. The effect of Thermal Barrier Coatings (TBC) and Orbital Elements (OE) and their impact in the internal temperature of a CubeSAT type nanosatellite (named CIIIASat) were evaluated in the present research. Thermal analysis was performed with the use of a couple of commercially available tools. An own developed code using Matlab and a Finite Difference Method (FDM) software were used in order to evaluate the thermal behavior of the system. The developed thermal analysis was used as a selection tool in order to determine the best thermal barrier coatings, evaluating its impact and contribution to the thermal behavior of the system. The developed code is capable of solving the energy balance for the critical conditions of the heat transfer problem, in both steady and transient states. The results obtained from the own developed numerical code were compared with the results obtained in a commercially available FDM software in order to pre-validate the results. The results of the pre-validation were positive, the own developed numerical code presented a good agreement with the FDM software, however, the developed code allowed a more conservative estimation. Subsequently the own developed numerical code was validated with experimental data obtained from literature. The results of the numerical code had a good agreement with experimental information, having a 5.4% of error when estimating the maximum temperature, and a 4.4% of error when estimating the minimum temperature of the system.