2 Oct 2025

Modeling Thermocouple Placement in a CUBI Test Fixture

Abstract: This report describes an effort to model the response of temperature thermocouples mounted on a multisurface CUBI test fixture as a means to document potential thermocouple error sources. (CUBI is a euphemistic term that describes an assembly of contiguous cubic or rectangular solids.) The thermal solver within the commercially available Multi-Service Electro-Optical Signature (MuSES) Infrared (IR) was employed for modeling and analysis. Modeling was divided between the development of models to study individual temperature sensors and the incorporation of many such sensors into a full-up CUBI apparatus. The MuSES model of the simple plate in replicating analytic results to a high degree of accuracy, thus validating the MuSES solver. Additionally, MuSES modeled a CUBI fixture as a 2D shell in an outdoor environment. This model was run with and without attached sensors. The difference in temperature of a particular sensor and of the underlying CUBI surface with the sensor absent provided a prediction of the measurement artifact introduced by that sensor.