The temperature of the high speed aircraft optical dome rises rapidly because of aerodynamic heating, which causes severe thermal radiation effect on the detection system in the aerodynamic thermal environment. Therefore, the tracking and acquiring ability of the detector is affected. The temperature distribution of the dome in the aerodynamic thermal environment was investigated through the finite element simulation. The radiative energy factor was used to sample the continuous radiative spectral energy of the dome outside and inside surfaces. The thermal radiation transmission of the dome outside and inside surfaces was simulated numerically using a ray tracing program based on the fourth-order Runge-Kutta algorithm and the Feder method. The number of traced radiative rays of the dome outside and inside surfaces was enormously reduced by introducing the concept of thermal pupil. The irradiance distribution of the dome on the detector’s photosensitive surface was obtained using this ray tracing program. The results showed that the thermal radiation of the dome causes radiation interference for the detection system, and makes the background noise of detection system increase in the aerodynamic thermal environment. Therefore, the thermal radiation of the dome in the aerodynamic thermal environment cannot be neglected.
