A novel technique for radiation shape factor calculation using CAD software

摘要

The most useful method in calculating radiation heat transfer between surfaces is using the concept of radiation shape factor. There are many methods for calculating the shape factor, but only a small number of software or computer programs exist that can calculate it, and most of them have limited capabilities for this procedure. In this article, a computer program written in VBA is presented that uses the hemisphere method to calculate the shape factor between two arbitrary 2-D (region) or 3-D (3dsolid) objects in AutoCAD environment. First and second objects are selected by the user from the AutoCAD screen. Then the program calculates the shape factor and writes the final shape factor in a text file.