Radiation heat transfer in a spherical enclosure containing a participating, heat-generating gas

An analysis is made of the thermal radiation in an absorbing-emitting nonisothermal gas confined in a hollow spherical enclosure or in the space between two concentric spheres. The gas is gray and contains a volume heat source, while the bounding walls are black and isothermal. The conservation of energy principle yields an integral equation which has been solved for a wide range of geometric and radiative conditions. It is found that as the absorption coefficient increases in a fixed geometry, the gas temperature decreases and becomes more nonuniform. On the other hand, as the enclosure size increases, the gas temperature increases and becomes more nonuniform. An approximate analysis using a conduction-type transfer law has been carried out, and the results are compared with the integral equation solutions.