A theoretical study of radiation between two concentric spheres using a modified discrete ordinates method associated with Legendre transform

A modified discrete ordinates method (DOM) is used in spherical participating media. The radiative intensity is broken up into two components. One component is traced back to the enclosure's source. It is called direct intensity. The other component is rather traced back to the contribution of the medium itself. It is called diffuse intensity. Thus, the radiative transfer equation (RTE) is transformed into two simultaneous equations: a direct RTE and a diffuse RTE. The direct RTE is solved analytically. The diffuse RTE is solved numerically using the DOM. The streaming angular derivative term appearing in spherical geometry is modeled by making use of the Finite Legendre Transform. We study a pure radiation transfer problem between two concentric spheres. The medium is assumed to be gray and isotropically scattering. The limiting spheres are considered to be opaque, gray, diffusely emitting and diffusely reflecting with uniform emissivity over each surface. The obtained results are compared with available cases reported in the literature. In particular, relative importance of the direct radiation in optically thin media is studied.