A NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF RAY TRACING METHOD IN A VIEW FACTOR CALCULATION PROCEDURE FOR ZONAL RADIATION HEAT TRANSFER IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS

In this paper a variety of well known computer graphics algorithms (Binary Spatial Partitioning-BSP, Bounding Box- BB, and direct method of sequential search) for ray tracing are studied numerically in the context of the view factor calculations for the zonal method of radiation heat transfer analysis in complex industrial furnace geometries. The paper reports on a modified BSP algorithm which takes into account the specific types of obstructions and their arrangement in different types of metallurgical furnaces. The modified algorithm enhances the ray tracing calculations by two to three orders of magnitude. An universal algorithm to obtain an intersection with a polyhedron obstruction is developed. The method is tested for simple three dimensional and complex furnace geometries.