Improved Finite Volume Method for Three-Dimensional Radiative Heat Transfer in Complex Enclosures Containing Homogenous and Inhomogeneous Participating Media

ABSTRACT

The paper presents a modified finite volume method for the solution of the radiative transport equation, which implements the FTn angular discretization along with the bounded high-resolution curved line advection method to alleviate ray effect and false scattering, respectively, and consequently improve the accuracy of the final results. Using the blocked-off-region procedure, the present formulation is capable of treating blockage effects caused by inner/outer obstructing bodies. The developed methodology based on the combination of the above methods is evaluated against five three-dimensional test cases considering either homogenous or inhomogeneous participating media. For all cases, the predictions reveal the mitigation of false scattering and ray effects consequently the improvement of accuracy, employing this model for solving radiation heat transfer in industrial applications. In industrial application, the radiative heat transfer problem is solved for a unity boiler furnace where an inhomogeneous medium is assumed. The effects of the scattering albedo, walls emissivity and walls temperature are investigated.

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Notes on contributors

Kamel Guedri

Kamel Guedri is an assistant professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Umm Al-Qura University (Makkah, Saudi Arabia). He received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the National College of Engineering of Monastir (University of Monastir) in Tunisia. His research interests are in the areas of radiative transfer, heat and mass transfer, computational methods, radiative transfer, biomass, biofuel, solar energy, fire modelling, and multiphase reacting flows. He has published more than fifty articles in international journals and conference proceedings and editorial books. He is working on numerical modeling of radiation heat transfer in variety of applications (furnaces, boilers, solar absorbers, concentrating solar power, fire safety, and spectral properties of combustion products). Also, he has interest in renewable energies, such as biomass and solar energy, to produce electricity and biofuels.

Abdulmajeed Saeed Al-Ghamdi

Abdulmajeed S. AL-Ghamdi is an associate professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Umm Al-Qura University (Makkah, Saudi Arabia). He received his M.S., Ph.D. in the area of heat transfer, and M.S. in the area of applied math from Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USA. His research area involves heat and mass transfer, extended surfaces, solar thermal applications, computational methods, and refrigeration and air-conditioning. Recently, he has successfully completed a research project in the area of concentrated solar thermal power plants, funded by KFUPM, KSA. He is currently working on numerical modeling of concentrating solar power and heat and mass transfer in different applications.