The laboratory test and thermal analysis of a radiative shielded furnace.

摘要

The goal of this thesis is to develop and validate mathematical models to characterize the thermal behavior of a radiative shielded furnace. The mathematical models are validated against data obtained from laboratory testing of a breadboard furnace. To aid in the model correlation, the experimental conditions are chosen to isolate or enhance specific aspects of the thermal behavior of the furnace. Results from eight experiments conducted under vacuum and varying pressures of gas are presented. A thermal network model is developed to predict the steady state and transient response of the furnace under conditions matching those of the experiments. Specialized models are developed to account for heat losses through the furnace power and instrumentation cables, buoyancy driven flows through and around exposed surfaces of the furnace, and specular radiation effects within the furnace. Descriptions of the thermal models are presented along with comparisons of the numerical results to those obtained by experiment. Several possible enhancements to both the models and to the implementation of the experiments are suggested. It is concluded that a combined experimental/computational approach provides a unique insight into the physics of the experiments that may not have been revealed otherwise.