By: David Wheeler & William Tryon

November 30, 2011

 Introduction

 It is often necessary to know the fraction of the total
emission from a blackbody that is in a certain
wavelength interval or band.
 A ‘Blackbody Radiation Function’ table can be used
to lookup such values to calculate the total emissive
power.
 The calculations to find the total emissive power are
long, quite monotonous, and can introduce errors.
 Our object is to make this process quicker, easier,
and more accurate.
 Main Objectives

 User Friendly
 Accurate
 Intuitive (no need for instructions)
 Easy of Use
 Universal (able to use on a wide variety of problems)
 Visually Appealing
 Quick
 Able to accept small changes easily, in order to gain a
better understanding of the material
 Calculator Layout
 The fraction of the
Define the radiation between
temperature of the the specified
diffuse surface wavelengths

Define up to three If desired, enter the

wavelengths of spectral, normal
interest emissivity for the
specified range
Press Run! at any
time to update the Total emissivity
calculations
Total emissive
Press Reset to erase power
all entries
 Sample Problem

 A diffuse surface at 1600K has the following spectral,
hemispherical emissivity:

ε = 0.40 for 0 < λ < 2μm

ε = 0.80 for 2 < λ < 5μm
ε=0 for λ > 5μm

Determine the total hemispherical emissivity and the

total emissive power.
 Sample Problem (cont.)

 Enter the following
parameters:
• Surface temperature
• λ1 and λ2
• ε1 and ε2
 Push Run!
 Viola! There’s the
answers!
 How it Works!

 We wrote a MATLAB script that interpolates the
data from Table 12.1
 We then designed and programed a Graphical User
Interface (GUI) to collect the required inputs
 Using the interpolated data and the collected inputs,
we performed the necessary calculations
 We display the fractional radiation distribution, the
total emissivity, and total emissive power.
 Conclusion

 The program is:
 User Friendly
 Accurate
 Intuitive (no need for instructions)
 Easy of Use
 Universal (able to use on a wide variety of problems)
 Visually Appealing
 Quick
 Able to accept small changes easily, in order to gain a
better understanding of the material
 Future Work

 Ability to increase the number of specified
wavelengths.
 Higher order approximation for the fraction of the
blackbody emission in a spectral band (currently we
use a linear fit)
 Create a Java applet to improve availability
 Include additional outputs, such as the spectral
intensity for the specified wavelength.
Questions?
