Measured Thermal Behaviour of Enclosures

Abstract

Several radio telescopes for millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths and several communication antennas are protected by a radome or an astrodome. The radome is an over-hemispherical enclosure of which the inside climate can be controlled by ventilation or air-conditioned ventilation. The radome is stationary and the Sun illuminates it from a gradually changing direction as explained in Sect. 5.8. Solar radiation is diffusely transmitted through the radome skin and is next to internal heat sources (receivers, telescope drives), the origin of a vertical temperature gradient of the inside air. The ventilation reduces the vertical temperature gradient and also the temperature gradient in the telescope structure. The radome of the Onsala 20-m telescope is shown in Fig. 3.4.