Quasi-Random Discrete Ordinates Method to Radiative Transfer Equation with Linear Anisotropic Scattering

Abstract

The modeling of energy transport via radiative transfer is important to many practical high temperature engineering applications. Furthermore, the computation of solutions to the radiative transfer equation (RTE) plays a fundamental part in it. The quasi-random discrete ordinates method was developed as an alternative to mitigate the ray effect found in the classical discrete ordinates method solutions. The former method was originally developed for transport problems with isotropic scattering and it is here extended and tested to problems with linear anisotropic scattering. Its main idea is to approximate the integral term of the RTE by a quasi-Monte Carlo integration. The discrete system of differential equations arising from it can be solved by a variety of classical discretization methods, here computed with a SUPG finite element scheme. The novel developments are tested for selected manufactured solutions. The achieved good results indicate the potential of the novel method to be applied to the solution of radiative transfer problems with anisotropic scattering.