High-order solution methods for grey discrete ordinates thermal radiative transfer

This work presents a solution methodology for solving the grey radiative transfer equations that is both spatially and temporally more accurate than the canonical radiative transfer solution technique of linear discontinuous finite element discretization in space with implicit Euler integration in time. We solve the grey radiative transfer equations by fully converging the nonlinear temperature dependence of the material specific heat, material opacities, and Planck function. The grey radiative transfer equations are discretized in space using arbitrary-order self-lumping discontinuous finite elements and integrated in time with arbitrary-order diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta time integration techniques. Iterative convergence of the radiation equation is accelerated using a modified interior penalty diffusion operator to precondition the full discrete ordinates transport operator.