International audienceThis work proposes a comprehensive and efficient optimization approach for designing surface patterning for increasing solar panel absorption efficiency using near-field radiation effects. Global and local optimization methods, such as the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno quasi-Newton (BFGS-QN) and simulated annealing (SA), are employed for solving the inverse near-field radiation problem. In particular, a thin amorphous silicon (a-Si) solar panel with periodic silver nanowire patterning is considered. The design of the silver patterned solar panel is optimized to yield maximum enhancement in photon absorption. The optimization methods reproduce results found in the previous literature but with reduced computational expense. Additional geometric parameters, which are not discussed in previous work, are included in the optimization analysis, further allowing for increased absorption enhancement. Both the BFGS-QN and the SA methods give efficient results, providing designs with enhanced absorption
International audienceCPU time for radiative heat transfer analysis using the zone method is greatly reduced. Reduction in CPU time is attributed to the development of a simplified version of the plating algorithm for calculation of total exchange areas (TEAs) and of a model reduction algorithm for eliminating low-energy-level exchange areas from the matrix of radiative transfer. The accuracy and efficiency of the algorithms are examined for a windscreen bending furnace and a gas quenching chamber. Total CPU time is reduced by a factor of 17 for both applications
International audienceGreat efforts have been made to date toward modeling nongray radiative heat transfer accurately. In this article, a new version of the plating algorithm, designated the re-plating algorithm, for total exchange areas (TEAs) calculation from direct exchange areas (DEAs) for nongray radiative problems is presented. The re-plating algorithm calculates TEAs for a given band number b from those of band number b - 1 by performing successive re-plating procedures. The effectiveness of the new algorithm is demonstrated for thermal modeling of an aluminum brazing furnace and a glass treatment furnace. CPU requirements for TEA calculation were reduced significantly
This paper is devoted to the simulation of 3D transient radiation and conduction heat transfer occurring inside thin glass sheets undergoing high temperature processing. The glass is considered as an absorbing, emitting, and nonscattering medium. The zonal method is used to establish the governing radiation transfer model. Direct exchange areas are calculated by the flux planes approximation. The thin layer approximation (TLA) is then introduced for increasing CPU efficiency. Three different numerical integration schemes made possible by the TLA are presented. Comparisons are made, with calculations performed using the finite volume method (FVM). The transient coupled energy equation is solved by a full implicit control volume method using the incomplete Cholesky conjugate gradient method. The heat transfer analysis of a glass sheet residing inside a hot rectangular enclosure is studied. Results obtained by the zonal method, with or without the TLA, are in close agreement with those obtained by the FVM. CPU requirements for radiative heat transfer analysis of the zonal method with TLA are, depending on the numerical integration scheme used, between 8 and 23 times smaller than those of the zonal method without TLA. The difference between the results of the different models never exceeds 4%. The zonal method with the TLA offered significant improvements in CPU time when compared with the original zonal method with similar or acceptable accuracy.
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