Analysis of radiative heat transfer in a planar participating medium subjected to diffuse and/or collimated radiation - A comparison of the DTM, the DOM, and the FVM

Analysis of radiative heat transfer in a plane-parallel participating medium subjected to diffuse and/or collimated radiation has been studied using three popular methods in radiative heat transfer, viz., the discrete transfer method (DTM), the discrete ordinate method (DOM), and the finite-volume method (FVM). To show the similarity in the methods, a general formulation having the same quadrature scheme has been used in all three methods. Three test problems have been considered to compare the results from the three methods. Results have been compared for the effects of the extinction coefficient, the scattering albedo, the anisotropy parameter, and for the collimated radiation case, also for the angle of incidence. Results of the three methods have been found to compare very well with each other. The FVM has been found to be the most computationally efficient.