Thermo-Mechanical Coupling Modeling of Active Phased Array Antennas

Abstract

The large thermal deformation of the panel in active phased array antennas (APAAs) caused by the thermal power consumption of the internal devices and the change in the ambient temperature in actual operating conditions will result in a considerable decline in the electromagnetic (EM) performance of radar. Experimental research indicates that the thermal deformation of the panel is affected not only by temperature but also by the constraints caused by the installation. Thus, this paper proposes a thermo-mechanical coupling modeling method for an APAA considering the panel temperature and constraints. The coupling model can accurately predict the panel thermal deformation, thereby providing a basis for the compensation of the EM performance of radar. The thermal deformation of the panel is decomposed into a thermal expansion and an offset. Models of the thermal expansion with respect to temperature and the offset with respect to the constraint force are established. The final thermo-mechanical coupling model is obtained by coupling the two models. Experiments verify that the prediction accuracy of the coupling model is 86.3%, which is 21.0% higher than that of a finite element software simulation. The content of this research has practical engineering importance for improving the overall performance of APAAs.