Simulation of ESA’s MSL Furnace Inserts and Sample-Cartridge Assemblies: Model Development and Correlation with Experimental Data

The development of the MSL Furnace Inserts (FIs) and Sample-Cartridge Assemblies (SCAs) Thermal Modeling Tool (TMT) is presented. The TMT is based on the software package CrysVUn. In this paper, we report details of the validation procedure of the Thermal Mathematical Models (TMM) of the FIs Low Gradient Furnace (LGF) and Solidification and Quenching Furnace (SQF). The TMMs are verified for several stationary and time-dependent processes using different SCAs. The agreement with experimental measurements at 12 thermocouples inside the SCA is in each case better than 2%.