Finite Element Analysis of Heat Transfer Behaviors of Aluminum Honeycomb Sandwich Structures

Honeycomb sandwich structures show excellent heat-shielding performance. This paper studies heat transfer mechanisms of aluminum honeycomb sandwich structures by finite element analysis. The heat conduction/radiation coupling relationship is considered, where the transient first-order heat conduction governing equation is used to describe the relationship between the temperature change and the external heat source, and the heat radiation is formulated by the Stefan–Boltzmann governing equation that describes the relationship between the effective radiation and the temperature field. Thus, the coupling relationship is represented by the imposition of heat source due to radiation as the boundary condition on the heat conduction equation. The finite difference algorithm is used to solve the temperature distribution of structures. Effects of geometry parameters and boundary conditions on the temperature field of structures are explored. Numerical results by ABAQUS software demonstrate the advantage of honeycomb structures in area of heat shielding.