Analysis of collimated radiation in participating media using the discrete transfer method

A general formulation of the discrete transfer method is provided to analyze radiative heat transfer problems in a participating medium subjected to collimated radiation. The formulation is validated by considering 1-D planar absorbing, emitting and anisotropically scattering gray medium in radiative equilibrium. Anisotropy of the medium is approximated by linear anisotropic phase function. For the purpose of comparison, the problem is also solved analytically. Results are obtained for different angles of incidence of the collimated radiation. At a given angle of incidence, results are obtained for forward, isotropic and backward scattering situations. Heat flux results are compared over a wide range of values of the extinction coefficient. Emissive power distributions in the medium are also obtained for some cases. The discrete transfer method results are found to compare very well with the analytic results.