A new inverse approach for the equivalent gray radiative property of a non-gray medium using a modified zonal method and the complex-variable-differentiation method

Non-gray radiative properties of an absorbing, emitting, non-gray participating medium significantly increase the difficulty of solving the radiative transfer equation. This paper presents a new inverse approach for the equivalent gray radiative property of a non-gray medium. In this approach, the unknown equivalent gray radiative properties are treated as the optimization variables, and the errors to be minimized are the differences between the calculated temperatures and the measured ones. The measured data are simulated by solving the direct problem, in which a modified zonal method together with the Edwards exponential wide-band model is employed. In the inverse problem, the sensitivity coefficients are first calculated by the complex-variable-differentiation method, and then the least-square method and the Newton-Raphson iterative method are employed to minimize the target function. The effectiveness and efficiency of the inverse problem are demonstrated in an example, and another case is given to show the accuracy and potential of the proposed algorithm. The effects of the measurement error and the number of measurement points on the accuracy of the inverse analysis are also investigated in detail.

Research highlights► This paper is first to invert equivalent gray radiative property of non-gray medium. ► Sensitivity coefficients are evaluated by complex-variable-differentiation method. ► The results here point to promising candidates for engineering applications.