A new second order form of radiative transfer equation (named MSORTE) is proposed, which overcomes the singularity problem of a previously proposed second order radiative transfer equation [J. Comput. Phys. 214 (2006) 12-40 (where it was termed SAAI), Numer. Heat Transfer B 51 (2007) 391-409] in dealing with inhomogeneous media where some locations have very small/zero extinction coefficient. The MSORTE contains a naturally introduced diffusion (or second order) term which provides better numerical property than the classic first order radiative transfer equation (RTE). The stability and convergence characteristics of the MSORTE discretized by central difference scheme is analyzed theoretically, and the better numerical stability of the second order form radiative transfer equations than the RTE when discretized by the central difference type method is proved. A collocation meshless method is developed based on the MSORTE to solve radiative transfer in inhomogeneous media. Several critical test cases are taken to verify the performance of the presented method. The collocation meshless method based on the MSORTE is demonstrated to be capable of stably and accurately solve radiative transfer in strongly inhomogeneous media, media with void region and even with discontinuous extinction coefficient.

This paper has been accepted for publication on Journal of Computational Physics. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2012.08.020)

J.M. Zhao, J.Y. Tan and L.H. Liu. A second order radiative transfer equation and its solution by meshless method with application to strongly inhomogeneous media. Journal of Computational Physics,Volume 232, Issue 1, 1 January 2013, Pages 431–455

A preprint version can be download here: MSORTE.pdf