Uncertainty calculation of the effective emissivity of cylinder-conical blackbody cavities

Abstract

A numerical and geometrical model for calculating the local effective emissivity of isothermal blackbody cylinder-conical cavities with lid, assuming diffuse reflection, is described. This has been developed by generalizing previous models based on conical and cylindrical geometries. The model has been validated by determining the diffusely reflected photon trajectories and the corresponding experimental view factors between given pairs of surface elements. Differences compared to theoretical values, were subsequently analyzed in terms of the model’s intrinsic uncertainty. A well-defined numerical function that calculates the effective emissivity as a function of its natural variables, intrinsic emissivity and geometrical parameters, is established.In order to calculate the probability distribution of the output quantity, we use the Monte Carlo method for the propagation of the probability distributions that characterize our knowledge concerning the values of the influence variables.The model is applied to heat-pipe black bodies installed at our laboratory, previously characterized at the PTB. A comparison with published uncertainty results, obtained by applying classical uncertainty propagation techniques, is also made.