CHAPARRAL: A library for solving large enclosure radiation heat transfer problems

Abstract

Large, three-dimensional enclosure radiation beat transfer problems place a heavy demand on computing resources such as computational cycles, memory requirements, disk I/O, and disk space usage. This is primarily due to the computational and memory requirements associated with the view factor calculation and subsequent access of the view factor matrix during solution of the radiosity matrix equation. This is a fundamental problem that constrains Sandia`s current modeling capabilities. Reducing the computational and memory requirements for calculating and manipulating view factors would enable an analyst to increase the level of detail at which a body could be modeled and would have a major impact on many programs at Sandia such as weapon and transportation safety programs, component survivability programs, energy programs, and material processing programs. CHAPARRAL is a library package written to address these problems and is specifically tailored towards the efficient solution of extremely large three-dimensional enclosure radiation heat transfer problems.