Curved ray tracing method for one-dimensional radiative transfer in the linear-anisotropic scattering medium with graded index

The curved ray tracing method (CRT) is extended to radiative transfer in the linear-anisotropic scattering medium with graded index from non-scattering medium. In this paper, the CRT is presented to solve one-dimensional radiative transfer in the linear-anisotropic scattering gray medium with a linear refractive index and two black boundaries. The predicted temperature distributions and radiative heat flux at radiative equilibrium are determined by the proposed method, and numerical results are compared with the data in references. The results show that the CRT has a good accuracy for radiative transfer in the linear-anisotropic scattering medium with graded index and the dimensionless emissive power and dimensionless radiative heat flux depend on the dimensionless refractive index gradient. It can also be seen that the dimensionless refractive index gradient has important effects on the temperature discontinuity at the boundaries.     

Discrete transfer method with the concept of blocked-off region for irregular geometries

The discrete transfer method (DTM) is applied to irregular geometries with a concept of blocked-off region previously applied in the problems of computational fluid dynamics. This gives a new alternative to the DTM for its implementation to irregular structures. The Cartesian coordinate-based ray-tracing algorithm can be applied to the geometries with inclined or curved boundaries. Some test problems are considered and results are validated with the available results in the literature. Both radiative and non-radiative equilibrium situations are considered. The medium is assumed to be both participating and non-participating. Results are found to be accurate for all kinds of situations.     

Monte Carlo discrete curved ray-tracing method for radiative transfer in an absorbing-emitting semitransparent slab with variable spatial refractive index

A Monte Carlo discrete curved ray-tracing method is developed to analyze the radiative transfer in one-dimensional absorbing-emitting semitransparent slab with variable spatial refractive index, in which the Monte Carlo method is combined with the discrete curved ray-tracing method. A problem of radiative equilibrium with linear variable spatial refractive index is taken as an example to examine the accuracy of the proposed method. The temperature distributions and the dimensionless radiative heat flux are determined by the proposed method and compared with the data in references, which are obtained by other different methods. The results show that the Monte Carlo discrete curved ray-tracing method has a good accuracy in solving the radiative transfer in one-dimensional semitransparent slab with variable spatial refractive index.     

Transient radiation and conduction heat transfer inside a plane-parallel participating gray medium with boundaries having different reflecting characteristics

A hybrid ray-tracing method is developed for the solution to the radiative transfer in a plane-parallel participating medium having one specular surface and another diffuse surface. By this method, radiative transfer coefficients (RTCs) for specular–diffuse (S–D) surfaces are deduced. The medium surfaces are considered to be semitransparent. The effects of convection–radiation parameter, conduction–radiation parameter and refractive index on transient coupled heat transfer are investigated. Results show that the temperature curves of the medium having S–D surfaces is higher than those of the medium having S–S surfaces (two specular surfaces); the total heat flux at steady state for the S–D surfaces is lower than that for the S–S surfaces.     

半透明介质相变中的辐射变物性问题

半透明介质相变传热在许多工程领域引起关注,其实质是变物性条件下伴随相变的辐射-导热瞬态耦合传热问题,其难点在于相变过程中的辐射变物性问题,尤其是折射率的时空演变问题.本文首次研究相变过程中的变折射率问题.假设相变介质存在固相-糊状-液相区,固/糊界面、液/糊界面假定为半透明漫反射.采用多层辐射传递模型模拟相变介质内的辐...     

Effect of reflecting modes on combined heat transfer within an anisotropic scattering slab

Under various interface reflecting modes, different transient thermal responses will occur in the media. Combined radiative-conductive heat transfer is investigated within a participating, anisotropic scattering gray planar slab. The two interfaces of the slab are considered to be diffuse and semitransparent. Using the ray tracing method, an anisotropic scattering radiative transfer model for diffuse reflection at boundaries is set up, and with the help of direct radiative transfer coefficients, corresponding radiative transfer coefficients (RTCs) are deduced. RTCs are used to calculate the radiative source term in energy equation. Transient energy equation is solved by the full implicit control-volume method under the external radiative-convective boundary conditions. The influences of two reflecting modes including both specular reflection and diffuse reflection on transient temperature fields and steady heat flux are examined. According to numerical results obtained in this paper, it is found that there exits great difference in thermal behavior between slabs with diffuse interfaces and that with specular interfaces for slabs with big refractive index.     

Spectral and refractive effects in non-stationary radiative transfer: a theoretical study in dense media

A theoretical study of unsteady radiative heat transfer inside refractive heterogeneous participating media is presented. In the approximation of space-time geometrical optics, some new properties for propagating waves are exhibited. Physically, it is shown that the time dependency of refractive index can give rise to an effect of spectral bounce, whereas space dependency is responsible for the existence of confined trajectories for light. Then, the problem of energy transport is studied: from the shape of Clausius Invariant in unsteady processes, the transient radiative transfer equation is built and the existence of amplification effects for specific intensity is presented.     

Two analytic methods applied to radiative transfer in the linear-anisotropic scattering medium with graded index and diffuse gray boundaries

The curved ray-tracing method is extended to radiative transfer in the graded index medium with diffuse gray boundary conditions instead of black boundary conditions and the pseudo-source adding method is extended to the case of the linear-anisotropic scattering medium with graded index from non-scattering medium. Furthermore, the equivalence of the two methods is verified by formulation derivation. As exact analytical solutions, both the methods have high accuracy and fast computational speed. The predicted temperature distributions and dimensionless radiative heat flux at radiative equilibrium are determined by the proposed methods, and the numerical results are compared with the data in references. The results show that the present methods have a good accuracy. Influences of various combinations of refractive index and boundary emissivities on the temperature distributions and dimensionless radiative heat flux are also investigated.     

Analysis of collimated radiation in participating media using the discrete transfer method

A general formulation of the discrete transfer method is provided to analyze radiative heat transfer problems in a participating medium subjected to collimated radiation. The formulation is validated by considering 1-D planar absorbing, emitting and anisotropically scattering gray medium in radiative equilibrium. Anisotropy of the medium is approximated by linear anisotropic phase function. For the purpose of comparison, the problem is also solved analytically. Results are obtained for different angles of incidence of the collimated radiation. At a given angle of incidence, results are obtained for forward, isotropic and backward scattering situations. Heat flux results are compared over a wide range of values of the extinction coefficient. Emissive power distributions in the medium are also obtained for some cases. The discrete transfer method results are found to compare very well with the analytic results.     

The DRESOR method for radiative heat transfer in a one-dimensional medium with variable refractive index

This paper extends the DRESOR (Distribution of Ratios of Energy Scattered by the medium Or Reflected by the boundary surface) method to radiative transfer in a variable refractive index medium. In this method, the intensity is obtained from the source term along the curved integration paths determined only by the variable refractive index, and the DRESOR values are calculated by the Monte Carlo method in which the propagation of the energy bundles are affected by Snell's law. With given temperatures on the black boundaries of a one-dimensional medium, the temperature distribution inside the medium with a variable scattering property is calculated under the condition of radiative equilibrium. It is shown that the DRESOR method has a good accuracy in the cases studied. For an isotropic-scattering medium with the same optical thickness, the scattering albedo has no effect on the temperature distribution, which can be obtained from the general equations and can be seen as an extension of what exists for a constant refractive index; however, the different refractive index causes obvious changes in the temperatures inside the medium. The effect of anisotropic scattering on the temperature distribution cannot be ignored, although it is still weaker than the effect caused by variation in the refractive index.     

Discrete curved ray-tracing method for radiative transfer in an absorbing-emitting semitransparent slab with variable spatial refractive index

A discrete curved ray-tracing method is developed to analyze the radiative transfer in one-dimensional absorbing-emitting semitransparent slab with variable spatial refractive index. The curved ray trajectory is locally treated as straight line and the complicated and time-consuming computation of ray trajectory is cut down. A problem of radiative equilibrium with linear variable spatial refractive index is taken as an example to examine the accuracy of the proposed method. The temperature distributions are determined by the proposed method and compared with the data in references, which are obtained by other different methods. The results show that the discrete curved ray-tracing method has a good accuracy in solving the radiative transfer in one-dimensional semitransparent slab with variable spatial refractive index.     

Transient coupled heat transfer in a rectangular medium with black surfaces

The main objective of this paper is to extend to two-dimensional (2-D) medium the ray tracing-node analyzing method, which has already been successfully used to solve one-dimensional (1-D) problem of coupled heat transfer in a semitransparent medium. For simplicity, an infinitely long rectangular semitransparent medium with four black opaque surfaces is chosen as our studying object. A control volume method in the implicit scheme is adopted for discretizing the partial transient energy equation. In combination with spectral band model, the radiative heat source term is calculated using the radiative transfer coefficients (RTCs), which are deduced by the ray tracing method. The Partankar's linearization method is used to linearize the radiative source term and the opaque boundary condition, and the linearized equations are solved by the ADI method. Effects of absorption coefficient, refractive index and conductivity on transient cooling process in the 2-D gray rectangular medium are investigated under the condition that the radiation and convection processes cool one side of the rectangular medium while heat the remaining three sides.     

On radiative transfer in water spray curtains using the discrete ordinates method

Radiative transfer through water spray curtains has been presently addressed in conditions similar to devices used in fire protection systems. The radiation propagation from the heat source through the medium is simulated using a 2D Discrete Ordinates Method. The curtain is treated as an absorbing and anisotropically scattering medium, made of droplets injected in a mixing of air, water vapor and carbon dioxide. Such a participating medium requires a careful treatment of its spectral response in order to model the radiative transfer accurately. This particular problem is dealt with using a correlated-K method. Radiative properties for the droplets are calculated applying the Mie theory. Transmissivities under realistic conditions are then simulated after a validation thanks to comparisons with some experimental data available in the literature. Owing to promising results which are already observed in this case of uncoupled radiative problem, next step will be to combine the present study with a companion work dedicated to the careful treatment of the spray dynamics and of the induced heat transfer phenomena.     

Benchmark numerical solutions for radiative heat transfer in two-dimensional medium with graded index distribution

In graded index media, the ray goes along a curved path determined by Fermat principle. Generally, the curved ray trajectory in graded index media is a complex implicit function, and the curved ray tracing is very difficult and complex. Only for some special refractive index distributions, the curved ray trajectory can be expressed as a simple explicit function. Two important examples are the layered and the radial graded index distributions. In this paper, the radiative heat transfer problems in two-dimensional square semitransparent with layered and radial graded index distributions are analyzed. After deduction of the ray trajectory, the radiative heat transfer problems are solved by using the Monte Carlo curved ray-tracing method. Some numerical solutions of dimensionless net radiative heat flux and medium temperature are tabulated as the benchmark solutions for the future development of approximation techniques for multi-dimensional radiative heat transfer in graded index media.     

Prediction of radiative heat transfer in 2D irregular geometries using the collocation spectral method based on body-fitted coordinates

Recently, an efficient numerical method, which is called the collocation spectral method (CSM), for radiative heat transfer problems, has been proposed by the present authors. In this numerical method there exists the exponential convergence rate, which can obtain a very high accuracy even using a small number of grids. In this article, the CSM based on body-fitted coordinates (BFC) is extended to simulate radiative heat transfer problems in participating medium confined in 2D complex geometries. This numerical method makes simultaneously the use of the merits of both the CSM and BFC. In this numerical approach, the radiative transfer equation (RTE) in orthogonal Cartesian coordinates should be transformed into the equation in body-fitted nonorthogonal curvilinear coordinates. In order to test the efficiency of the developed method, several 2D complex irregular enclosures with curved boundaries and containing an absorbing, emitting and scattering medium are examined. The results obtained by the CSM are assessed by comparing the predictions with those in references. These comparisons indicate that the CSM based on BFC can be recommended as a good option to solve radiative heat transfer problems in complex geometries.     

The radiative transfer in cylindrical medium and partition allocation method by overlap regions

In this paper the radiative transfer in one-dimensional and two-dimensional cylindrical medium is simulated by the Monte-Carlo (M-C) method. Our results agree with the previous ones very well. It indicates that our cylindrical M-C model is creditable. In this paper, the partition allocation method of radiative heat transfer in participating cylindrical media is presented, in which every sub-domain is isolated by imaginary black wall at certain equivalent temperature and overlaps each other. The stitched results of all sub-domains can predict the results of a whole zone accurately. The partitioned treatment by overlap regions can achieve reasonable result, save memory efficiently, and compute parallel.     

Finite element method for modeling radiative transfer in semitransparent graded index cylindrical medium

Both Galerkin finite element method (GFEM) and least squares finite element method (LSFEM) are developed and their performances are compared for solving the radiative transfer equation of graded index medium in cylindrical coordinate system (RTEGC). The angular redistribution term of the RTEGC is discretized by finite difference approach and after angular discretization the RTEGC is formulated into a discrete-ordinates form, which is then discretized based on Galerkin or least squares finite element approach. To overcome the RTEGC-led numerical singularity at the origin of cylindrical coordinate system, a pole condition is proposed as a special mathematical boundary condition. Compared with the GFEM, the LSFEM has very good numerical properties and can effectively mitigate the nonphysical oscillation appeared in the GFEM solutions. Various problems of both axisymmetry and nonaxisymmetry, and with medium of uniform refractive index distribution or graded refractive index distribution are tested. The results show that both the finite element approaches have good accuracy to predict the radiative heat transfer in semitransparent graded index cylindrical medium, while the LSFEM has better numerical stability.     

Verification of numerical simulation method for entropy generation of radiation heat transfer in semitransparent medium

The numerical simulation method of radiative entropy generation in participating media presented by Caldas and Semiao [Entropy generation through radiative transfer in participating media: analysis and numerical computation. JQSRT 2005;96:423-37] is extended to analyze the radiative entropy generation in the enclosures filled with semitransparent media. A discrete ordinates method is used to solve radiative transfer equation and radiative entropy generation. Two different examples are employed to verify the numerical simulation method of radiative entropy generation in the enclosure. Numerical results of dimensionless radiative entropy generation of enclosure are identical to that of entire thermodynamics analysis for the enclosure system. This numerical simulation method can be used in the entropy generation analysis of high-temperature systems such as boilers and furnaces, in which radiation is the dominant mode of heat transfer.     

Modified finite-volume method based on a cell vertex scheme for the solution of radiative transfer problems in complex 3D geometries

A modified finite-volume method based on a cell vertex scheme was applied to solve radiative transfer problems within a participating medium of complex three-dimensional shaped domain. The computational spatial domain of interest was divided into four-node tetrahedron elements with unstructured meshes while the adopted formulation was combined with a closure relation based on an exponential scheme. The studied medium was assumed to be grey, non-scattering and was bounded by black surfaces. Our results were then compared with those found in other articles on the subject. The approach shows a very good level of performance for wall heat transfer evaluation. Accurate results were obtained on coarse computational meshes and solution errors were found to decrease with grid refinement.     

Theoretical study of combined radiative conductive and convective heat transfer in semi-transparent porous medium in a spherical enclosure

A new method for the solution of the radiative transfer equation in spherical media based on a modified discrete ordinates method is extended to study radiative, conductive and convective heat transfer in a semi-transparent scattering porous medium. The set of differential equations is solved using the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. Various results are obtained for the case of combined radiative and conductive heat transfer, as well as for the interaction of those modes with convection. The effects of some radiative properties of the medium on the heat transfer rate are examined.