The Iterative-DRESOR method to solve radiative transfer in a plane-parallel, anisotropic scattering medium with specular-diffuse boundaries

Using the intensity with high directional resolution obtained by the Basic-DRESOR method as an initial guess, which is substituted into the integrated radiative transfer equation (IRTE), an iterative algorithm is proposed, called the Iterative-DRESOR method. This method can reduce the error levels of the intensity from several percent using the Basic-DRESOR method to a level of less than 1.0×10⁻⁶ with acceptable computation costs. The method is also validated against the exact heat flux in literature in some cases. It further clarifies some uncertain results for the reflectance in a pure, linearly anisotropic scattering medium with specular-diffuse boundaries. The directional distributions of intensity are obviously influenced by the reflecting modes of the boundary, especially in the zone near the boundary. The reflecting mode of an emitting boundary has little effect on the transmittance or reflectance. The reflecting mode of a non-emitting boundary also has little effect on the transmittance, but it obviously influences the reflectance. The difference between the reflectance for specular and diffuse boundaries increases at first, and then decreases, as the optical thickness of the medium increases. The difference will decrease as the scattering albedo of the medium increases, and it is negligible when the medium is pure scattering. The effect of the scattering phase function of the medium on the difference can also not be ignored. The Iterative-DRESOR method is expected to strengthen the capability of the Monte Carlo method to produce accurate results and to validate the results of other methods to solve RTE.