TUTORIAL 11: RADIATION

Questions are adapted from [1] and [2]

1. The air temperature on a clear night is observed to remain at about 4 ℃. Yet, water is
reported to have frozen that night due to radiation effect. Taking the convective heat
transfer coefficient to be 18 𝑊𝑊/𝑚𝑚2 ∙ ℃, determine the value of the maximum effective sky
temperature that night.

[-18.1 ℃]

2. Consider a 10-ft x 10-ft x 10-ft cubical furnace whose top and side surfaces closely approximate black
surfaces and whose base surface has an emissivity 𝜀𝜀 = 0.7. The base, top and side surfaces of the
furnace are maintained at uniform temperatures of 800 R, 1600 R, 2400 R, respectively. Determine the
net rate of radiation heat transfer between (a) the base and the side surfaces and (b) the base and the
top surfaces. Also determine the net rate of radiation heat transfer to the base surface.

3. Consider a person whose exposed surface area is 1.7 𝑚𝑚2 , emissivity is 0.85, and surface temperature
is 30 ℃. Determine the rate of heat loss from that person by radiation in a large room whose walls are
at a temperature of 300 𝐾𝐾.
[28.4 W]
4. A thin aluminium sheet with an emissivity of 0.15 on both sides is placed between two very large
parallel plates, which are maintained at uniform temperature 𝑇𝑇1 = 900 𝐾𝐾 and 𝑇𝑇2 = 650 𝐾𝐾 and have
emissivities 𝜀𝜀1 = 0.5 and 𝜀𝜀2 = 0.8, respectively. Determine the net rate of radiation heat transfer
between the two plates per unit surface area of the plates and compare the result with that without
the shield.

Self-study questions

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 5. Consider a 20-cm diameter spherical ball at 800K suspended in air. Assuming the ball closely
approximates a blackbody, determine (a) the total blackbody emissive power (b) the total
amount of radiation emitted by the ball in 5 min (c) the spectral blackbody emissive power
at a wavelength of 3 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇.

𝑊𝑊
[2.92 kW, 877 kJ, 3848 ]
𝑚𝑚2 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇
6. Determine the view factors 𝐹𝐹13 and 𝐹𝐹23 between the rectangular surfaces shown in the figure below.

[0.24, 0.05]

7. Determine the view factors from the very long grooves shown in the figure below to the surroundings
without using any view factor tables or charts. Neglect end effects.

TABLE 1 COMMON CONVERSIONS FOR QUANTITIES

Length 1m 3.281 ft 39.37 in. 6.214 x 10-4 mile

Mass 1kg 2.205 lbm 6.852 x 10-2 slug
Temperature 𝑇𝑇𝑐𝑐 °C 𝑇𝑇𝐹𝐹 = 1.8𝑇𝑇𝐶𝐶 + 32 °𝐹𝐹 𝑇𝑇𝑘𝑘 = 𝑇𝑇𝑐𝑐 + 273.15 K 𝑇𝑇𝑅𝑅 = 1.8𝑇𝑇𝑐𝑐 + 491.67 °𝑅𝑅
Volume 1L 1/3.785 US gallon 1/4.546 Imperial gallon 0.001 m3
Force 1N 2.248 x 10 -1 lbf
Pressure 1 bar 0.987 atm 14.504 psi 100 kPa

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ANNEX A SHAPE FACTORS

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Annex B: View factors for some geometries

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[1] Cengel, Y.A. (2002) Heat Transfer: A Practical Approach. 2nd Edition. Mcgraw-Hill Education – Europe.

[2] Mills, A.F. (2014) Basic Heat and Mass Transfer. 2nd Edition. Pearson Education Limited.