EFFICIENT EVALUATION OF DIFFUSE VIEW FACTORS FOR RADIATION

This paper presents a numerical method of evaluating view factors betw een planar surfaces which is computationally efficient and quite gener al to program on a computer. The method, which is based on Gaussian qu adrature to perform the contour integration is extended to surfaces wi th curved boundaries. The performance of various quadrature formulas v iz. trapezoidal. Simpson and Gaussian, have been compared for performa nce by applying them to sample problems. The Gaussian quadrature metho d with nonlinear transformation to map the boundary has been found to be the most accurate, computationally faster and very general. As an a pplication, the shape factor between two elliptic surfaces has been ev aluated.