Thermal modeling of stratospheric airships

The interest in stratospheric airships has increased and great progress has been achieved since the late 1990s due to the advancement of modern techniques and the wide range of application demands in military, commercial, and scientific fields. Thermal issues are challenging for stratospheric airships, while there is no systematic review on this aspect found yet. This paper presents a comprehensive literature review on thermal issues of stratospheric airships. The main challenges of thermal issues on stratospheric airships are analyzed. The research activities and results on the main thermal issues are surveyed, including solar radiation models, environmental longwave radiation models, external convective heat transfer, and internal convective heat transfer. Based on the systematic review, guides for thermal model selections are provided, and topics worthy of attention for future research are suggested.