Finite Volume Method for Radiative Heat Transfer Using Unstructured Meshes

The finite volume method has been shown to accurately predict radiative heat transfer in absorbing, emitting, and scattering media. However, computations have for the most part been restricted to structured, body-fitted meshes. In this paper a conservative cell-based numerical scheme is devised for computing radiative heat transfer using meshes composed of arbitrary unstructured polyhedra. The method is shown to be robust and accurate through comparisons with published solutions. (Author)