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Advances in Space Research 53 (2014) 862869
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Experimental investigation of transient thermal behavior of an

airship under dierent solar radiation and airow conditions
De-Fu Li a,b, Xin-Lin Xia a,, Chuang Sun a
a

School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
b
Beijing Institute of Astronautical System Engineering, Beijing 100076, China

Received 5 August 2013; received in revised form 30 October 2013; accepted 26 December 2013
Available online 4 January 2014

Abstract
Knowledge of the thermal behavior of airships is crucial to the development of airship technology. An experiment apparatus is constructed to investigate the thermal response characteristics of airships, and the transient temperature distributions of both hull and inner
gas are obtained under the irradiation of a solar simulator and various airow conditions. In the course of the research, the transient
temperature change of the experimental airship is measured for four airow speeds of 0 m/s (natural convection), 3.26 m/s, 5.5 m/s
and 7.0 m/s, and two incident solar radiation values of 842.4 W/m2 and 972.0 W/m2. The results show that solar irradiation has significant inuence on the airship hull and inner gas temperatures even if the airship stays in a ground airow environment where the heat
transfer is dominated by radiation and convection. The airow around the airship is conducive to reduce the hull temperature and temperature nonuniformity. Transient thermal response of airships rapidly varies with time under solar radiation conditions and the hull
temperature remains approximately constant in 510 min. Finally, a transient thermal model of airship is developed and the model
is validated through comparison with the experimental data.
2014 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Airship; Transient thermal behavior; Solar radiation; Airow convection; Experimental investigation

1. Introduction
Stratospheric balloons and airships which have inherent
capabilities of low speed and long duration ight are
attractive candidates for pre-alarming monitoring, navigation and telecommunications research. The thermal behavior of stratospheric balloons and airships are much
dierent from that of aircrafts and spacecrafts, which is
dominated by radiation and aected by natural convection
and forced convection (Pankine et al., 2003; Xia et al.,
2010). These thermal characteristics will inuence the rising
characteristics, ight control and hull properties of
Corresponding author at: School of Energy Science and Engineering,
Harbin Institute of Technology, 92 West Dazhi Street, Harbin 150001,
China. Tel./fax: +86 0451 8641 2148.
E-mail address: xiaxl@hit.edu.cn (X.-L. Xia).

stratospheric balloons and airships to a certain extent.

Accordingly, the thermal behavior of balloons and airships
and its eects become a common basic matter among the
many key technologies of stratospheric balloons and
airships.
The thermal behavior of stratospheric balloons and airships has been numerically investigated by many scholars
(Carlson and Horn, 1983; Stefan, 1983; Rapert, 1987;
Harada et al., 2003; Franco and Cathey, 2004; Lee et al.,
2006; Xia et al., 2010; Wang and Yang, 2011). Stefan
(1983) numerically investigated the day-night airship temperature variation using a two nodes model. Carlson and
Horn (1983) obtained the average hull and lifting gas temperatures during ascent by using a zero dimensional transient thermal model. Rapert (1987) developed a one
steady-state dimensional model to analyze the radial heat
transfer through an airship. Harada et al. (2003) conducted

0273-1177/$36.00 2014 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2013.12.032

D.-F. Li et al. / Advances in Space Research 53 (2014) 862869

the numerical investigations on the circumferential temperature of airships by using a two dimensional thermal
model. Franco and Cathey (2004) developed a thermal performance model on NASAs scientic balloons to investigate the temperature distribution of sphere, zero pressure
balloons and ultra long duration balloons at oat conditions neglecting convection. Xia et al. (2010) developed a
three dimensional transient model to predict the variation
of hull and lifting gas temperatures at oat conditions.
Wang and Yang (2011) developed a three dimensional
transient thermal model for inspecting the thermal behavior of balloons and airships based on computational uid
dynamic (CFD).
Other studies conducted experimental investigations on
thermal behavior of airships and balloons. Natural convection inside an airship was experimentally investigated by
Henze et al. (2006). The rotation of the test cylinder is used
to simulate the impact of the heating of the airship by the
sun. They obtained the uid temperature distribution and
the averaged Nusselt number for dierent angles of rotation. Natural convection around an infrared balloon was
experimentally investigated by using a heated model of
the IR Balloon placed in a heavy gas lled tank (Bruce
et al., 2010). The local Nusselt number for Rayleigh numbers from 2:1  108 to 1:1  109 and dierent temperature
distribution on the balloon were investigated. Harada
et al. (2003) conducted two experiments on the circumferential temperature of the 25 m-long airship and the 35 m-long
PV-equipped airship model.
The foregoing discussion on the literature shows that the
transient temperature distributions of both hull and inner
gas under solar irradiation and various airow conditions

863

have not given much attention. The objective of this study

is to conduct experiment on transient thermal behavior of
an airship under solar irradiation and various airow conditions. And a transient thermal model of airship is developed and the model is validated through comparison with
the experimental data.
2. Experimental apparatus
The experiments were conducted in a closed laboratory.
The solar irradiation on the airship was simulated by a
solar simulator. Direct solar radiation heat ux, airow
speed, the hull and inner gas temperatures were measured
by using heat ow meter, hot-wire anemometer and
thermocouples. Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of the
experimental apparatus.
The following experimental apparatuses were used in
this experiment: aerostat model, TRM-PD solar simulator,
draught fan, MODEL KA22 hot-wire anemometer,
XLP12-1S-H2 heat ow meter and T-type thermocouple.
A solar simulator is a device that provides illumination
approximating natural sunlight, which consists of light
source (xenon lamp), adjusting mechanism and control system. The specications and uncertainties of the measuring
instruments are summarized in Table 1.
The solar irradiation on the hull was simulated by the
solar simulator. The change rule of the hull and inner gas
temperatures were obtained by eighteen T-type thermocouples. The draught fan was used to simulate dierent outside
convection environment of the airship.
Fig. 2 shows the schematic drawing of the rigid
structure airship and temperature measurement locations.

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of experiment for thermal behavior of an aerostat model.

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D.-F. Li et al. / Advances in Space Research 53 (2014) 862869

Table 1
Specications and uncertainties of the measuring instruments.
Item

Full scale

Uncertainty

Mode

Solar simulator
Hot-wire anemometer

Spectral range: 0:28 lm  3 lm

VL: 04.99 m/s
VH: 550 m/s
200 C350 C
9000 m3 =h
>1500 W=m2

Illumination uncertainty: 5%

2% of full scale

TRM-PD
MODEL KA22

1 C

3% of full scale

T-type

XLP121S-H2

Thermocouple
Draught fan
Heat ow meter

Experimental model was a sphere-cylinder body with cylinder diameter D 0:47 m and the length L 1:42 m . The
material of the hull was Polyimide lm with thermal conductivity k 0:32 W=m K. The total solar absorptivity of the
external surface was as 0:45 and the absorptivity of the
external surface in the infrared spectrum was eex 0:81
through testing. Sixteen T-type thermocouples were used
to measure the hull temperatures and arranged on two sections. The density of the thermocouples on the solar irradiation surface was greater than that on the shade surface.
There was a one-to-one relationship between the thermocouples on the two section. Accordingly, 1 and 9, 2 and
10, 3 and 11, 4 and 12, 5 and 13, 6 and 14, 7 and 15, 8 and
16 had a one-to-one relationship. There were two thermocouples to measure the inner gas temperature. In addition,
environmental conditions such as atmospheric temperature,
ground temperature and airow speed were measured.

and the airow was maintained at a constant speed. Two

incident solar radiation values and four airow speeds were
used. The switches of solar simulator and draught fan were
turned on and o simultaneously. The hull and inner gas
temperatures were experimentally measured under natural
convection and forced convection conditions.
3.1. Airship temperature under natural convection
environment
Fig. 3 is a plot of the hull, inner gas, atmosphere and
ground temperatures under natural convection environment
for direct solar radiation heat ux qs 972:0 W=m2 . The
subscripts shown in Fig. 3 are the number of the thermocouples. As can be observed, the hull temperature rapidly
increases with the solar irradiation time at rst, then
increases slowly, and then remains approximately constant,
which means steady state occurs. It is 600 s when the irradiation surface temperature reaches a steady-state value.
The hull temperatures on the two measured sections are
approximately equal for the one-to-one thermocouples,
and the maximum temperature dierence is less than

3. Results and discussion

Each experimental run was started when the solar simulator was switched on and set at a constant insolation value
z

14

6
5

v0

15

13

7
8

18

16

12

o
3

17

2
x

10
9

0.235m

11

0.235m

0.56m

0.56m
1.42m

14

4
30o
45o

13

15

12

18

30o
45o

0.27m

16

17
2
1

10
9

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the airship and temperature measurement points.

11

D.-F. Li et al. / Advances in Space Research 53 (2014) 862869

16

22

T9
T10
T16

T1
T2
T8

17

T1
T2
T8

20

t / oC

t / oC

18
15
14

T9
T10
T16

16
14
12

13
0

100

200

300

/ s

400

500

600

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

/ s

(a) Hull temperature

(a) Hull temperature

100

100

60

80
T3
T5

60

t / oC

T11
T12
T13
T14

T3
T4
T5
T6

80

t / oC

865

40

T11
T13

40
20

20
0
0

100

200

300

/ s

400

500

600

200

1000

1200

40

t / oC

t / oC

30

800

(b) Hull temperature

T17
T18
Ta
Te

35

600

/ s

(b) Hull temperature

40

400

25

T17
T18
Ta
Te

30

20

20
15

0
0

100

200

300

/ s

400

500

600

(c) Inner gas, ground and atmosphere temperatures

Fig. 3. Variations of temperature with time for natural convection with
qs 972:0 W=m2 .

2.3 C which occurs between Nos. 4 and 12, which shows the
symmetry to a great extent to select the current model to
simulate thermal behavior of airships. The thermal conditions of the two measured sections are same and the hull
temperature measured by the corresponding thermocouples
on the two section are approximately uniform under natural
convection environment. The maximum temperature variation is 78.4 C on the No. 14 thermocouple. The No. 16
surface temperature increases from an initial value 13.5 C
to 16.4 C. The minimum temperature variation is less
than 3 C on the No. 16 thermocouple. The maximum temperature dierence between the irradiation surface and
shade surface can reach as large as 76.4 C on the same time.
It can be seen from Fig. 3c that the inner gas temperature
(T 18 ) near the irradiation surface increases from 13.7 C to
38.6 C, the temperature change is 24.9 C. The temperature

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

/ s

(c) Inner gas, ground and atmosphere temperatures

Fig. 4. Variations of temperature with time for natural convection with
qs 842:4 W=m2 .

change of inner gas near the shade surface is 6.7 C. The

temperature change of ground and that of atmosphere are
less than 1 C through the process of the experiment.
The temperature dierence between the hull and the inner
gas is considerably large, which can reach as large as
72.4 C, and that between the hull and the atmosphere is
78.3 C.
The hull, inner gas, atmosphere and ground temperatures under natural convection environment for direct solar
radiation heat ux for qs 842:4 W=m2 are shown in
Fig. 4. It is found that the transient temperature change
trend is similar to that for qs 972:0 W=m2 . The maximum
temperature change is 75.7 C. It is 800 s when the irradiation surface temperature reaches a steady-state value.
The maximum temperature dierence between the shade
surface and the irradiation surface is 73.5 C. The

866

D.-F. Li et al. / Advances in Space Research 53 (2014) 862869

17

16

t / oC

t / oC

15

14

T11

200

400

600

/ s

14

T16

T8

15

T9

T1
T3

13

800

1000

13
0

1200

200

T4
T5
T6
T7

600

800

1000

1200

(a) Hull temperature

T12
T13
T14
T15

80

40

20

T12
T13
T14
T15

T4
T5
T6
T7

60

t / oC

t / oC

60

400

/ s

(a) Hull temperature

80

T9
T11
T16

T1
T3
T8

16

40

20

200

400

600

/ s

800

1000

1200

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

/ s

(b) Hull temperature

(b) Hull temperature

22

T17
T18
Ta
Te

20

T17
T18
Ta
Te

20

18

t / oC

t / oC

24

16

16
14
12

12
0

200

400

600

/ s

800

1000

1200

varies

with

time

for

v0 3:26 m=s

400

600

800

1000

1200

/ s

(c) Inner gas, ground and atmosphere temperatures

(c) Inner gas, ground and atmosphere temperatures

Fig. 5. Temperature
qs 972:0 W=m2 .

200

and

temperature dierence between the hull and the inner gas is

67.8 C, and that between the hull and the atmosphere is
74.4 C.
3.2. Airship temperature under forced convection
environment
The hull, inner gas, atmosphere and ground temperatures under forced convection environment for airow
speed v0 3:26 m=s, v0 5:3 m=s and v0 7:0 m=s with
direct solar radiation heat ux for qs 972:0 W=m2 are
shown in Figs. 57, respectively.
It can be seen from Figs. 57 that the temperatures on
the front section (Nos. 18) are less than that of the latter
section (Nos. 916). This is due to the forced convection
heat transfer around the front section is higher than that
of the latter section. The corresponding maximum temperature dierence is occurs between Nos. 5 and 13, which is

Fig. 6. Temperature
qs 972:0 W=m2 .

varies

with

time

for

v0 5:3 m=s

and

5.8 C for v0 3:26 m=s, and that is 4.2 C and 2.9 C

for v0 5:3 m=s and v0 7:0 m=s, respectively.
The temperature of shade surface reaches a steady-state
value is 450 s, 410 s and 380 s for v0 3:26 m=s,
v0 5:3 m=s and v0 7:0 m=s, respectively. After comparing the hull temperature change shown in Fig. 5 with the
hull temperature change shown in Fig. 2, we can see that
the time when the temperature reaches a steady state value
under natural convection environment is greater than that
of under forced convection environment.
It seems according to Figs. 57 that the temperature
value on No. 13 is the most for all of the measure locations,
and that is 54.5 C, 46.7 C and 43.7 C for v0 3:26 m=s,
v0 5:3 m=s and v0 7:0 m=s, respectively. The maximum
temperature dierence between the shade surface and the
irradiation surface is 40.1 C for v0 3:26 m=s, while this
for v0 5:3 m=s and v0 7:0 m=s is 32.8 C and 29.1 C,
respectively. The temperature dierence between the hull
and the inner gas is 38.0 C, 31 C and 27.9 C, for

D.-F. Li et al. / Advances in Space Research 53 (2014) 862869

T1
T2
T3
T8

T9
T10
T11
T16

200

400

16
T9

T1

20

t / oC

t / oC

24

T12

T4

867

14

16

12
0

200

400

600

800

/ s

1000

1200

600

/ s

800

1000

1200

(a) Hull temperature

(a) Hull temperature

45
40

40
T13
T14
T15

T5
T6
T7

30
25

30

T5
T6

t / oC

t / oC

35

T13
T14

20

20
15
10

200

400

600

800

/ s

1000

10

1200

200

(b) Hull temperature

400

600

/ s

800

1000

1200

(b) Hull temperature

22
T17
T18
Ta
Te

18

T17
T18
Ta
Te

20
18

t / oC

t / oC

20

16
14

16
14

200

400

600

/ s

800

1000

1200

(c) Inner gas, ground and atmosphere temperatures

Fig. 7. Temperature
qs 972:0 W=m2 .

varies

with

time

for

v0 7:0 m=s

200

400

600

/ s

800

1000

1200

(c) Inner gas, ground and atmosphere temperatures

and

v0 3:26 m=s, v0 5:3 m=s and v0 7:0 m=s, respectively,

and that between the hull and the atmosphere is 41 C,
32.8 C and 29.2 C for v0 3:26 m=s, v0 5:3 m=s and
v0 7:0 m=s, respectively. The inner gas temperature
change can reach 10.6 C, 7.9 C and 7.2 C for
v0 3:26 m=s, v0 5:3 m=s and v0 7:0 m=s, respectively.
The hull, inner gas, atmosphere and ground temperatures under forced convection environment for airow
speed v0 7:0 m=s with direct solar radiation heat ux
for qs 842:4 W=m2 are shown in Fig. 8. It can be seen
from Fig. 8 that the maximum temperature is 42.3 C,
which is less than 1.4 C for qs 972:0 W=m2 . The maximum temperature change is 28.6 C. The temperature difference between the hull and the inner gas is 26.6 C, and
that between the hull and the atmosphere is 28.3 C.
4. Transient thermal model of the airship
We now proceed to develop a transient thermal model of
the airship and compare its results to those of our experiment.

Fig. 8. Temperature
qs 842:4 W=m2 .

varies

with

time

for

v0 7:0 m=s

and

This thermal model is based on an existing model developed

by us (Xia et al., 2010). The detailed model is proposed in
that paper, the change is made to this model to account
for the eect of natural convection, mixed convection
and forced convection on the thermal behavior of the
airship.
The forced convective heat transfer is one of the major
factors that dominate the thermal behavior of airships
due to the relative motion between airow and airship.
Natural heat transfer is an another factor when the temperature dierence between the hull and airow is large. The
eects of natural convection on thermal behavior of airship
should be considered when Gr=Re2 P 0:1 , and the eects
of forced convection on the thermal behavior can be
ignored when Gr=Re2 P 10 . The mixed convective heat
transfer coecient can be calculated from the next equation (Yang and Tao, 2007)
h3 h3f  h3n

868

D.-F. Li et al. / Advances in Space Research 53 (2014) 862869

Tg17

100

40
5

60

Tg18
simulation

35
30

experiment
simulation

t / oC

t / oC

80

40

25
20

20

15
10

100

200

300

400

500

600

(a) Hull temperature

100

200

300

400

500

600

(b) Inner gas temperature

Fig. 9. Comparison of the calculated results with the experimental results for natural convection with qs 972:0 W=m2 .

45

22

40

experiment
simulation

25

t / OC

t / oC

30

18
16

20
1

15
10

Tg17
Tg18
simulation

20

35

14

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

(a) Hull temperature

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

(b) Inner gas temperature

Fig. 10. Comparison of the calculated results with the experimental results for u0 7:0 m=s , qs 972:0 W=m2 .

where Gr is Grashof number; hf is the forced convective

heat transfer coecient; hn is the natural convective heat
transfer coecient.
Empirical equations are used for the local convective
heat transfer coecient of the exterior hull. The characteristic temperature is the average temperature of the hull
temperature and the airow temperature. The local convective heat transfer coecient is a function of the hull temperature and the axial coordination. The external local
forced heat transfer coecient can be calculated from the
next equation (Holman, 2002; Chen and Thyson, 1971)
where Re is the local Reynolds number; Pr is the Prandtl num-

8
>
0:332 Rey1=2 Pr1=3 ka =ly
>
<
0
hf hy c hy 0c  hy c  Rey i  Rey c =Rey c  Rey c
>
>
: 0:0296 Re0:8 Pr0:6 k =l
y

hn C t  ka  Ah  Ra0:33 =l
0:33

3


0:33

where Ah 0:71cos h ; h 90 19 ; Ah sin h ;

h 19 90 ; C t min0:14 Pr0:087 ; 0:15; l is the local curved
distance from the bottom of the airship.
The local Nusselt number inside the balloon is given as
Rohsenow (1973)
2:8
Nu
4
1=4
lnf1 2:8=C l Ra cos # g
where C l 0:515; Ra is the local Rayleigh number; # is the
included angle between the surface internal normal and the
vertical direction.

if Rey 6 Rey c
if Rey c < Rey < Re0y c
if Rey P

ber of atmosphere; ka is the conductivity of the atmosphere; ly

is the local curved distance from the nose of the airship;


Rey c 5  105 ; Re0y c Rey c 60 4:86  Ma1:92 Re2=3
yc ;
Ma is the free-stream Mach number.
The local natural convective heat transfer coecient
around the airship is given as Raithby and Hollands (1975)

Re0y c

Fig. 9 shows the comparison of the calculated results

with the experimental results for natural convection with
qs 972:0 W=m2 . It can be seen from Fig. 9 that the trend
of the simulation results shows good agreement with the
experimental results, the temperature dierence between
the simulation results and the experiment results for No.

D.-F. Li et al. / Advances in Space Research 53 (2014) 862869

5 is less than 3 C when the hull temperature remains

approximately constant, and that for No. 1 is less than
1.1 C. And the calculated average inner gas temperature
is between Nos. 17 and 18.
Fig. 10 shows the comparison of the calculated results with
the experimental results for u0 7:0 m=s; qs 972:0 W=m2 .
The temperature dierence between the simulation results
and the experiment results for No. 5 is less than 0.2 C, and
that for No. 1 is less than 0.2 C. And the calculated average
inner gas temperature is between Nos. 17 and 18.
The results of Figs. 9 and 10 show the validation to a
great extent to select the current model to simulate transient thermal behavior of airships.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, we conduct experimental investigations on
the transient thermal behavior of an airship under the irradiation of a solar simulator and four dierent airow conditions. A transient thermal model of airship is developed
and the model is validated through comparison with the
experimental data. The main conclusions from the experiment are as the following:
(1) Solar radiation has important eects on the airship
hull temperature and inner gas temperature. The maximum temperature dierence between the irradiation
surface and shade surface can reach as large as 40
70 C. The outside airow is conducive to reduce the
hull temperature value and temperature nonuniformity. The temperature dierence between the hull
and atmosphere can reach near 80 C and that
between the hull and inner gas can reach near 60 C
under natural convection environment. The temperature dierence between the hull and atmosphere is less
than 30 C and that between the hull and inner gas is
less than 25 C for airow speed v0 7:0 m=s.
(2) Transient thermal response of airships rapidly varies
with time under solar radiation conditions. The hull
temperature reaches a steady state value in 5
10 min.

869

Acknowledgment
The support of this work by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant 51176038) is gratefully
acknowledged.
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