Effect of optical properties on radiative-conductive heat transfer in a system of two semitransparent layers

Abstract

The paper offers a numerical simulation of the heat state for a two-layer semitransparent medium that imitates a hypothetical snow cover upon an opaque semi-infinite substrate; the layers of cover have different absorption and scattering coefficients. Computations were performed for key parameters typical of winter season. It was shown that, depending on the optical thickness of every layer and proportions of absorption to scattering in the incident radiation, we observe more intense heating of near-surface or deeper zones in the snow-ice medium. The radiation part of problem was solved using a modified average-flux method used to take into account the dependency of optical properties on the wavelength of incident radiation, scattering, and reflectance at the layers boundaries.