Application of full-spectrum k-distribution method to combined non-gray radiation and forced convection flow in a duct with an expansion

This paper presents a numerical analysis of interaction between non-gray radiation and laminar forced convection flow in a duct with an expansion. Distributions of absorption coefficients across the spectrum (50 cm −1 < η < 20000 cm −1 ) are obtained from the HITRAN2008 database. The full spectrum k-distribution method (FSK) is used to deal with the non-gray part of the problem, while the gray radiation calculations are carried out using the Planck mean absorption coefficient. In addition, the results of non-gray medium are compared with the gray results in order to judge if the differences between these two approaches are significant enough to justify the usage of non-gray models. Results show that for air mixtures with different mole fractions of CO 2 and H 2 O, use of gray model for the radiative properties may leads to considerable errors and should be eschewed.