Investigation on the Electromagnetic Transmission Performance of Radomes Under the Thermal Environment

The radome of high‐speed aircraft could suffer harsh thermal load during service, which affects the electromagnetic transmission performance of the radome. In this work, the influence mechanism and dominant factors governing the electromagnetic performance of the radome under a thermal environment are analyzed by combining the finite element method and multilevel fast multipole method. The finite element method is adopted to obtain the deformation of the radome. The multilevel fast multipole method is used to analyze the electromagnetic transmission performance of the deformed radome. The radome sample was fabricated, and the applicability of the analysis method was verified from both simulation and experimental perspectives. Furthermore, the electromagnetic performance of a streamlined radome under multiple operational conditions is analyzed. Results indicate that the deformation caused by thermal expansion has little influence on electromagnetic transmission performance. In contrast, temperature‐dependent material possesses a huge effect on the electromagnetic transmission performance of the radome. To be more specific, electromagnetic transmission declines with increasing temperature because the permeability and permittivity parameters rise with the growth of temperature, and this rise means a more serious impedance imbalance and more thermal loss during the electromagnetic wave propagation process. Therefore, the influence of thermal loads on the electromagnetic transmission performance is nonignorable.