Monte Carlo simulation of radiative heat transfer and turbulence interactions in methane/air jet flames

A Photon Monte Carlo method combined with a composition PDF method is employed to model radiative heat transfer in combustion applications. Turbulence-radiation interactions (TRIs) can be fully taken into account using the proposed method. Sandia's Flame D and artificial flames derived from it are simulated and good agreement with experimental data is found. The effects of different TRI components are investigated. It is shown that, to predict the radiation field accurately, emission TRI must be taken into account, while, as expected, absorption TRI is negligible in the considered nonsooting methane/air jet flames if the total radiation quantities are concerned, but non-negligible for evaluation of local quantities. The influence of radiation on the turbulent flow field is also discussed.     

Monte Carlo methods in radiative transfer and electron-beam processing

Monte Carlo methods (MCMs) are the most versatile approaches in solving the integro-differential equations. They are statistical in nature and can be easily adapted for simulation of the propagation of ensembles of quantum particles within absorbing, emitting, and scattering media. In this paper, we use MCM for the solution of the Boltzmann transport equation, which is the governing equation for both radiative transfer and electron-beam processing. We briefly outline the methodology for the solution of MCMs, and discuss the similarities and differences between the two different application areas. The focus of this paper is primarily on the treatment of different scattering phase functions.     

Multiple-scaling methods for Monte Carlo simulations of radiative transfer in cloudy atmosphere

Two multiple-scaling methods for Monte Carlo simulations were derived from integral radiative transfer equation for calculating radiance in cloudy atmosphere accurately and rapidly. The first one is to truncate sharp forward peaks of phase functions for each order of scattering adaptively. The truncated functions for forward peaks are approximated as quadratic functions; only one prescribed parameter is used to set maximum truncation fraction for various phase functions. The second one is to increase extinction coefficients in optically thin regions for each order scattering adaptively, which could enhance the collision chance adaptively in the regions where samples are rare. Several one-dimensional and three-dimensional cloud fields were selected to validate the methods. The numerical results demonstrate that the bias errors were below 0.2% for almost all directions except for glory direction (less than 0.4%) and the higher numerical efficiency could be achieved when quadratic functions were used. The second method could decrease radiance noise to 0.60% for cumulus and accelerate convergence in optically thin regions. In general, the main advantage of the proposed methods is that we could modify the atmospheric optical quantities adaptively for each order of scattering and sample important contribution according to the specific atmospheric conditions.     

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.     

Application of the spatial averaging theorem to radiative heat transfer in two-phase media

The spatial averaging theorem is applied to rigorously derive continuum-scale equations of radiative transfer in two-phase media consisting of arbitrary-type phases in the limit of geometrical optics. The derivations are based on the equations of radiative transfer and the corresponding boundary conditions applied at the discrete-scale to each phase, and on the discrete-scale radiative properties of each phase and the interface between the phases. The derivations confirm that radiative transfer in two-phase media consisting of arbitrary-type phases in the range of geometrical optics can be modeled by a set of two continuum-scale equations of radiative transfer describing the variation of the average intensities associated with each phase. Finally, a Monte Carlo based methodology for the determination of average radiative properties is discussed in the light of previous pertinent studies.     

Reverse electric field Monte Carlo simulation for vector radiative transfer in the atmosphere

In this paper, a reverse electric field Monte Carlo （REMC） method is proposed to study the vector radiation transfer in the atmosphere. The REMC is based on tracing the multiply scattered electric field to simulate the vector transmitted radiance. The reflected intensities with different total optical depth values are obtained, which accord well with the results in the previous research. Stokes vector and the degree of polarization are numerically investigated. The simulation result shows that when the solar zenith angle is determined, the zenith angle of detector has two points, of which the degree of polarization does not change with the ground albedo and the optical depth. The two points change regularly with the solar zenith angle. Moreover, our REMC method can be applied to the vector radiative transfer in the atmosphere-ocean system.     

Radiation symmetry test and uncertainty analysis of Monte Carlo method based on radiative exchange factor

Using Monte Carlo method, the paper investigates the radiative heat transfer in participating media. Based on the radiative exchange factor, an uncertainty analysis of Monte Carlo method is undertaken and the corresponding mathematical expressions are deduced to predict its accuracy. Furthermore, randomness properties of pseudorandom number generators are investigated, and a model to test radiation symmetry is adopted to validate the performance of some generators. The paper studies the effects of energy bundle numbers, discretization schemes, emission location, optical thicknesses, wall emissivity and CPU time on the numerical accuracy. In addition, the simulation results are proved to give a reference for using Monte Carlo method, which is applicable for calculation of the radiative exchange factor.     

Efficient unbiased variance reduction techniques for Monte Carlo simulations of radiative transfer in cloudy atmospheres: The solution

We present five new variance reduction techniques applicable to Monte Carlo simulations of radiative transfer in the atmosphere: detector directional importance sampling, n-tuple local estimate, prediction-based splitting and Russian roulette, and circum-solar virtual importance sampling. With this set of methods it is possible to simulate remote sensing instruments accurately and quickly. In contrast to all other known techniques used to accelerate Monte Carlo simulations in cloudy atmospheres - except for two methods limited to narrow angle lidars - the presented methods do not make any approximations, and hence do not bias the result. Nevertheless, these methods converge as quickly as any of the biasing acceleration techniques, and the probability distribution of the simulation results is almost perfectly normal. The presented variance reduction techniques have been implemented into the Monte Carlo code MYSTIC (“Monte Carlo code for the physically correct tracing of photons in cloudy atmospheres”) in order to validate the techniques.     

A Monte Carlo method for 3D thermal infrared radiative transfer

A 3D Monte Carlo model for specific application to the broadband thermal radiative transfer has been developed in which the emissivities for gases and cloud particles are parameterized by using a single cubic element as the building block in 3D space. For spectral integration in the thermal infrared, the correlated k-distribution method has been used for the sorting of gaseous absorption lines in multiple-scattering atmospheres involving 3D clouds. To check the Monte-Carlo simulation, we compare a variety of 1D broadband atmospheric fluxes and heating rates to those computed from the conventional plane-parallel (PP) model and demonstrate excellent agreement between the two. Comparisons of the Monte Carlo results for broadband thermal cooling rates in 3D clouds to those computed from the delta-diffusion approximation for 3D radiative transfer and the independent pixel-by-pixel approximation are subsequently carried out to understand the relative merits of these approaches.     

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.     

Discrete ordinate and Monte Carlo simulations for polarized radiative transfer in a coupled system consisting of two media with different refractive indices

We present an algorithm for polarized radiative transfer in a vertically stratified system consisting of two plane-parallel media with different refractive indices. It is based on the discrete ordinate method and includes multiple elastic scattering, thermal radiation, Fresnel reflection and transmission, incident parallel-beam or isotropic radiation at the top of the upper medium and bidirectional reflection at the bottom of the lower medium. Comparisons with results from Monte Carlo simulations show that the discrete-ordinate code provides accurate results for all four elements of the Stokes vector (I, Q, U, and V) at a speed that is orders of magnitude faster.     

Discrete vs. continuum-scale simulation of radiative transfer in semitransparent two-phase media

The mathematical formulation of the continuum approach to radiative transfer modeling in two-phase semi-transparent media is numerically validated by comparing radiative fluxes computed by (i) direct, discrete-scale and (ii) continuum-scale approaches. The analysis is based on geometrical optics. The discrete-scale approach uses the Monte Carlo ray-tracing applied directly to real 3D geometry measured by computed tomography. The continuum-scale approach is based on a set of continuum-scale radiative transfer equations and associated radiative properties, and employs the Monte Carlo ray-tracing for computations of radiative fluxes and for computations of the radiative properties. The model two-phase media are reticulate porous ceramics and a particle packed bed, each composed of semitransparent solid and fluid phases. The results obtained by the two approaches are in good agreement within the limits of statistical uncertainty. The continuum-scale approach leads to a reduction in computational time by approximately one order of magnitude, and is therefore suited to treat radiative transfer problems in two-phase media in a wide range of engineering applications.     

A Monte Carlo implementation to solve radiation heat transfer in non-uniform media with spectrally dependent properties

This paper presents the application of the Monte Carlo method to solve the radiative heat exchange in non-homogeneous, non-isothermal gases with spectrally dependent properties. Among others models, the absorption-line blackbody (ALB) distribution function, originally defined and derived for the spectral line-based weighted-sum-of-gray-gases (SLW) model, allows an immediate, simple implementation of the Monte Carlo method to account the spectral dependence of the radiative properties. This work shows how the Monte Carlo method can be combined to the ALB distribution function, and provides results for heat transfer in a mixture of water vapor, carbon dioxide and nitrogen that have satisfactory agreement with the SLW method and with line-by-line integration. Finally, the solution technique is employed to solve two examples aiming at demonstrating the effect of the absorbing species concentration on the thermal radiative exchanges. The method is of great interest for the computation of radiative transfer in combustion systems where the chemical species concentration and the temperature are not uniform.     

Discontinuous spectral element method for solving radiative heat transfer in multidimensional semitransparent media

A discontinuous spectral element method (DSEM) is presented to solve radiative heat transfer in multidimensional semitransparent media. This method is based on the general discontinuous Galerkin formulation. Chebyshev polynomial is used to build basis function on each element and both structured and unstructured elements are considered. The DSEM has properties such as hp-convergence, local conservation and its solutions are allowed to be discontinuous across interelement boundaries. The influences of different schemes for treatment of the interelement numerical flux on the performance of the DSEM are compared. The p-convergence characteristics of the DSEM are studied. Four various test problems are taken as examples to verify the performance of the DSEM, especially the performance to solve the problems with discontinuity in the angular distribution of radiative intensity. The predicted results by the DSEM agree well with the benchmark solutions. Numerical results show that the p-convergence rate of the DSEM follows exponential law, and the DSEM is stable, accurate and effective to solve multidimensional radiative transfer in semitransparent media.     

Least-squares collocation meshless approach for radiative heat transfer in absorbing and scattering media

A least-squares collocation meshless method is employed for solving the radiative heat transfer in absorbing, emitting and scattering media. The least-squares collocation meshless method for radiative transfer is based on the discrete ordinates equation. A moving least-squares approximation is applied to construct the trial functions. Except for the collocation points which are used to construct the trial functions, a number of auxiliary points are also adopted to form the total residuals of the problem. The least-squares technique is used to obtain the solution of the problem by minimizing the summation of residuals of all collocation and auxiliary points. Three numerical examples are studied to illustrate the performance of this new solution method. The numerical results are compared with the other benchmark approximate solutions. By comparison, the results show that the least-squares collocation meshless method is efficient, accurate and stable, and can be used for solving the radiative heat transfer in absorbing, emitting and scattering media.     

A modified implicit Monte Carlo method for time-dependent radiative transfer with adaptive material coupling

In this paper we develop a robust implicit Monte Carlo (IMC) algorithm based on more accurately updating the linearized equilibrium radiation energy density. The method does not introduce oscillations in the solution and has the same limit as Δt→∞$\mathrm{\Delta }t\to \infty$ as the standard Fleck and Cummings IMC method. Moreover, the approach we introduce can be trivially added to current implementations of IMC by changing the definition of the Fleck factor. Using this new method we develop an adaptive scheme that uses either standard IMC or the modified method basing the adaptation on a zero-dimensional problem solved in each cell. Numerical results demonstrate that the new method can avoid the nonphysical overheating that occurs in standard IMC when the time step is large. The method also leads to decreased noise in the material temperature at the cost of a potential increase in the radiation temperature noise.     

The Monte Carlo atmospheric radiative transfer model McArtim: Introduction and validation of Jacobians and 3D features

A new Monte Carlo atmospheric radiative transfer model is presented which is designed to support the interpretation of UV/vis/near-IR spectroscopic measurements of scattered Sun light in the atmosphere. The integro differential equation describing the underlying transport process and its formal solution are discussed. A stochastic approach to solve the differential equation, the Monte Carlo method, is deduced and its application to the formal solution is demonstrated. It is shown how model photon trajectories of the resulting ray tracing algorithm are used to estimate functionals of the radiation field such as radiances, actinic fluxes and light path integrals. In addition, Jacobians of the former quantities with respect to optical parameters of the atmosphere are analyzed. Model output quantities are validated against measurements, by self-consistency tests and through inter comparisons with other radiative transfer models.     

Finite element formulation of the first- and second-order discrete ordinates equations for radiative heat transfer calculation in three-dimensional participating media

Two finite element methods (FEMs), FEDOM1 and FEDOM2 (standing for the first and the second finite element discrete ordinates methods, respectively), are formulated and numerically tested. The reference second-order discrete equation is modified in its scattering terms and is applied to the problems of absorbing/emitting and anisotropically scattering media by using the FEM. Numerical features of the developed FEMs are compared with one of the discrete ordinates interpolation method (DOIM), which uses a finite difference scheme. Prediction results of radiative heat transfer by these two FEMs are compared with reference solutions and verified in three-dimensional enclosures containing participating media. The results of FEDOM1 and FEDOM2 agree well with exact solutions for the problem of absorbing/emitting medium with various range of optical thickness. Generally, the two FEMs show more accurate results than DOIM. And FEDOM1 shows more accurate results than FEDOM2 in most of the test problems. Both of the developed FEMs show reasonable results compared with published Monte Carlo solutions for the tested absorbing/emitting and anisotropically scattering media. Although the FEDOM2 is not as accurate as the FEDOM1, it shows its own advantages that it reduces CPU time and memory space of dependent variable to half.     

Non-analog Monte Carlo estimators for radiation momentum deposition

The standard method for calculating radiation momentum deposition in Monte Carlo simulations is the analog estimator, which tallies the change in a particle's momentum at each interaction with the matter. Unfortunately, the analog estimator can suffer from large amounts of statistical error. In this paper, we present three new non-analog techniques for estimating momentum deposition. Specifically, we use absorption, collision, and track-length estimators to evaluate a simple integral expression for momentum deposition that does not contain terms that can cause large amounts of statistical error in the analog scheme. We compare our new non-analog estimators to the analog estimator with a set of test problems that encompass a wide range of material properties and both isotropic and anisotropic scattering. In nearly all cases, the new non-analog estimators outperform the analog estimator. The track-length estimator consistently yields the highest performance gains, improving upon the analog-estimator figure of merit by factors of up to two orders of magnitude.