Empirical validation of thermal dynamics in a silicon microthruster: influence of boundary conditions

This paper investigates the influence of boundary conditions on the validation of a dynamic compact thermal model. The applied boundary conditions are used to consider the effect of the non-modelled parts of the microthruster. The values obtained through different optimization processes show the presence of local minima. This effect is overcome through a design of experiments, based on a central composite design. With the response surface fitted to the model error surface, a Monte-Carlo simulation is made, in order to obtain statistical information on the input parameters. Finally, the influence of the selected input parameters on the evolution of some relevant nodes is plotted. The thermal dynamics of these nodes, is to be predicted with a dynamic multiport compact thermal model.