Temperature prediction in thermal-lag equipment

IN MISSILE applications, electric equipment is required to function for a relatively short period of time in a hot ambient atmosphere, but is deprived of external cooling media such as air or oil. The dependability of the equipment depends on its ability to absorb its own heat losses or to transmit these losses by conduction to cooler surroundings. The general purpose of this paper is to present a method for predicting simultaneously the transient temperatures in two heat-generating solids such that both materials store some heat, while some heat is transmitted from one to the other and thence possibly to a third region at a fixed temperature. In particular, mean transient temperatures are predicted in the field winding and laminations of an a-c generator which is bolted to a support, but otherwise insulated from the ambient atmosphere. Application of this method to temperature prediction in solid-state devices is natural.