Heat transfer by radiation and conduction in fibrous media without axial symmetry

Coupled radiative and conductive heat transfer in a fibrous medium formed by silica fibres is investigated in this paper by not taking account of the axial symmetry for the distribution of fibres or the boundary conditions. Radiative properties of the medium are calculated by using the Mie theory. The model obtained depends only on optical parameters (indices of silica) and on morphological parameters (diameter and orientation of the fibres, density of the medium). Simulations make it possible to study the strongly anisotropic behaviour of the scattering of the radiation by a fibre and to study the influence of various parameters on the radiative properties of the medium. The results of the Mie theory make possible the simulation of the heat transfer coupled by radiation and conduction. To do this, we introduce a new numerical scheme able to simulate heat transfer in the lack of axial symmetry. With this model, we can show the effects of distribution of fibres and temperature on the thermal behaviour of the medium as well as showing the importance of the phenomenon of scattering in fibrous media.