Lens barrel heat transfer: An improvement method

The speedy movement of an aerial camera needs its lens barrel to have good capability of heat transfer to meet the temperature needs of the optics. This paper describes a method, with minor change of the original design, to improve a lens barrel's heat transfer. Compared with the original design, the current method costs less but greatly ameliorates the temperature uniformity. An experiment was designed to obtain the coefficient of thermal contact resistance between titanium alloy and Carbon–Carbon composite material. The coefficient was then used in a finite element thermal model. The thermal behavior was predicted by using an analysis software (IDEAS). After that, an experiment was done in the same condition of the prediction. The max temperature difference between prediction and the experimental results is less than 1 °C.

► An improvement of lens barrel's heat transfer is described.
► The coefficient of thermal contact resistance is obtained by an experiment.
► The coefficient is used in the prediction of the thermal behavior.
► The simulation results meet well with the experiment ones.