SOLVING COUPLED HEAT RADIATION-CONDUCTION PROBLEMS USING THE BOUNDARY ELEMENT METHOD

Heat transfer in solids having concave boundaries is considered. Strong interaction between conduction within the solid and radiation on the concave portion of the boundary is taken into account. The differential equation of conduction is transformed into an integral one and discretized employing the standard Boundary Element Method (BEM). The governing equation of radiation is an integral equation, thus its discretization is accomplished employing BEM technique and using standard BEM routines. Discretization of both conduction and radiation equations results in two coupled sets of nonlinear algebraic equations. The walls of the cavity are treated as nongrey. A numerical example is included.