Numerical Analysis of Radiative Heat Transfer from Three Dimensional Bodies of Arbitrary Configurations

A numerical calculation method has been presented for predicting radiative heat transfer from three-dimensional isothermal black bodies of arbitrary configurations. We consider the body to be composed of numerous arbitrary polygons, which can be generated by computer graphics of CAD ; and the effective exchange area of the threedimensional body is introduced for the numerical analysis. The present numerical solutions for bodies of simple configurations show good accordance with the existing analytical solutions. Radiative exchange between two arbitrary bodies can be calculated by using the effective exchange areas. As a calculation example, the effective exchange area of an automobile crank shaft model composed of 181 polygons was demonstrated. The numerical solutions converge with a relatively small number of graphic elements.