Objective To address the issues of traditional air conditioning load calculation methods under dynamic boundary conditions, such as overestimated steady-state calculation results, complex unsteady-state calculation, and low efficiency of numerical analysis, a Modelica-based RC thermal network heat transfer model is proposed to achieve fast and accurate calculation of multi-zone dynamic air conditioning loads in the control cabin of underwater vehicles.

Method Based on the thermoelectric analogy theory, a physical model of the multi-zone RC thermal network for the control cabin was constructed, and object-oriented modeling of the model was implemented using the Modelica language. The lumped parameter method was adopted to determine the model parameters, and dynamic boundary conditions for two typical navigation working conditions (surface and underwater) were set for load simulation calculation. Finally, the simulation results were compared with the measured data to obtain the dynamic response accuracy.

Result The simulation results show that the model can effectively simulate the changes of multi-zone dynamic loads. Under the surface working condition, the average relative error rate of the total load is 3.17% with a maximum error rate of 6.64%; under the underwater working condition, the average relative error rate of the total load is 2.90% with a maximum error rate of 9.24%, indicating high model accuracy.

Conclusion The Modelica-based RC thermal network model can efficiently and accurately calculate multi-zone air conditioning loads under complex dynamic boundaries, providing a reliable simulation tool for engineering practice and possessing high engineering application value.