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Radiation

INTRODUCTION

Heat is transferred through three different modes which are convection, conduction and

radiation. This experiment was aimed at reviewing the main concepts of radiation and to help in

understanding infrared radiation thermography. It is important to determine remote temperature

when a body emits its electromagnetic radiation. IR cameras are used to determine this

temperature. The use of the cameras is dependent on three laws of heat transfer and equations

which are Stefan-Boltzmann, Wiens law and Plancks distribution. Transmissivity, emissivity,

reflectivity, absorptivity and surroundings are other thermophysical properties which are

important when determining an objects temperature. From Plancks distribution, the emissive

power (, ) is a function of both wavelength () and temperature (T).

Where,

T = temperature (K),

= wavelength (m),

, = emissive power (W m-2 m-2),

C1=2C02 = 3.742 E8 (W m4 m-2),

C2 = hC0 / k = 1.439 E4 (m).

When equation (1) is differentiated with respect to wavelength () and then equated to zero the

result denoted by equation (2) is known as Wiens law.

On the other hand, integration of equation (1) with respect to wavelength () results to what is

known as total blackbody power emitted which is also known Stefan-Boltzman equation

(equation (3)).

Emissivity is one of the major material properties. It is the measure of a how a material can emit

infrared energy. As shown in equation (4) emissivity can be described as the ratio of the emissive

power of the real body matter to the emissive power of a blackbody emitter

Another important material property is transmissivity( ). Transmissivity is the ratio of

transmission to the irradiance.

= /G (5)

Where,

G is the irradiance,
 is the transmission,

is the transmissivity.

As stated earlier, IR cameras are used to study the amount of radiation transmitted through a

given object. Equations (6) and (7) are used to calculate the emissivity of the source material.

T4 = material T4 + material Tmaterial (6)

T4 = table T4 + table Ttable (7)

Where,

is Stefan-Boltzmann constant,

is emissivity,
is reflectivity,
T is temperature.
The previously stated laws and equations will be used to in this report to help understand transfer
of heat through radiation and also to understand IR thermography techniques used in the field.
METHODS

The experiment starts with four radiant sources set at temperatures of 50C, 100C, 150C and

200C. These are to remain in their positions for the rest of the experiment. Both FLIR tools and

IR cameras are to be used to obtain data and measurement. Three important parameters are input

in the software. The parameters are ambient air temperature, emissivity of 0.95 and distance.
 Figure1. Radiant heat source
In the FLIR software the spot measurement tool is used to take measurements of temperature at
every station.

Figure 2: how camera energy from the source

One temperature measurement is taken without inverting material in between the camera and
source and the remaining three measurements are taken with samples of polycarbonate, glass and
polyethylene which are placed half way in between the source and camera. Also distance has to
be varied for better understanding of its effect on the measurement. Also, to be measured is the
temperature of the reflected radiation. In the second part of this experiment, pail emissivity in the
fourth station is to be observed. The pail has one part which is shiny and unpainted and another
part which is painted black. The distance of the pail from the camera is 0.60m. two
thermocouples are to be used for measuring water temperature in the pail and the outside-wall
temperature of the pail. The pail has to be full of hot water. The FLIR software measurement tool
is used to monitor pail temperature.
In the software, the emissivity is changed up to a point when the thermocouple value and FLIR
value match. The above procedure is to be repeated for other second side of pail.
RESULTS
Table 1 below contains data collected from blackbody emissions. Five readings were taken from
the camera that is reading from polyethylene, glass, polycarbonate, air only, reflected from table
and single reading with the thermocouple for every source. During the experiment the value of
emissivity was maintained constant (0.95).

Table1: Raw Data from Blackbody

For each of the above radiant sources, the maximum wavelength was calculated using equation
(2) after all the values of temperature were converted to Kelvin and where,
, is the maximum wavelength,
T is the temperature of the radiant source.

Table2: Maximum Wavelengths

From the above table, the emission is found to be in the range of 7.5 m 13 m.
In this experiment of radiation heat transfer it is important to determine the transmissivity of a
body to help in understanding the energy passing through it. During the analysis, equation (6)
was used to determine the transmissivity of polyethylene at four temperatures using direct
relationship between source temperature and transmissivity and with indirect relationship
between peak wavelength and transmissivity.

Table3: Transmissivity Values.

The reflectivity of the table was also analyzed. From equation (7) reflectivity was calculated by
determining camera indications, reflection energy of the table and table emission. Reflectivity of
light on the table for all the temperature conditions was calculated using some algebraic
operations. In the calculation, direct relationship between the temperature source and reflectivity
and indirect relationship between peak wavelength and reflectivity was considered where symbol
table is the reflectivity.

Table4: source reflectivity Values

Another factor of major concern was the amount of energy each radiant source could emit within
its sensitivity range. Function table of the blackbody radiation was used to determine the energy
emitted. A factor of 7.5 was used to multiply the air only temperatures for the four sources and
13 for both the upper and lower limits of the sensitivity of wavelength for the camera. The values
7.5 and 13 were used to help in interpolating for the fraction values in table 5. Also during the
analysis the blackbody heater was not taken as an ideal blackbody and therefore the fraction
values were multiplied by emissivity of the heaters that is 0.95. the fraction within the range was
obtained by subtracting F0-13 from F0-7.5.

Table5: Radiant Energy fraction Emitted

Finally the pail experiment data was created in tables 6 and 7. The table shows the temperature
and estimate of emissivity values. Emissivity values were obtained by varying the its value until
both the thermocouple and camera reading were almost equal. The temperature set for the
blackbody emitters 50C, 100C, 150C and 200C but they do not reach the set temperature.
Emitters temperature values for the station of pail source were determined using two methods
that is thermocouple and IR camera. The readings of the thermocouple measurements were
coming out lower than the expected values while for the camera the readings were above
expected temperature. The two measurements had uncertainty and inherent error which could
have affected the readings. The error in the camera could be due to poor calibration while for the
thermocouple it could be due to poor contact of the user with the heater.
 Table6: Experiment pail data

Table7: Emissivity Values.

CONCLUSIONS
From this experiment of radiation heat transfer, important phenomena were learnt. The output
values of both the polycarbonate and the glass were similar for each station temperature but they
were much smaller compared to those of thermocouple and air only. Also it was noted that,
increase in temperature of the emitter resulted in decrease in output of the camera. This was
because when the temperature of certain materials increases, emissivity also increases and as a
result the IR camera values decrease. The temperatures of polyethylene were lower than those of
the emitter. The maximum wavelength was within camera range.
Other important factors learnt in this experiment were reflectivity and transmissivity. Both of
these factors are important in design of systems and components requiring transfer of heat
through radiation. From the calculations, polyethylene was found to have a transmissivity of 0.52
because of non-ideal environment conditions while performing the experiment where the
transferred energy by the black body was not the same as the theoretical value. The knowledge
of experimental and theoretical conditions is important. From this experiment it was found that
40.2% of the energy was emitted by the heaters within a range of the camera wavelength.
During the second part of the experiment, it was observed that there is a great difference between
the emissivity of the shiny side and black side of the pail. After iterating to have both the
thermocouple and camera temperature values converging, it was seen that shiny side had lower
temperature. This was true because it is an engineering principle that black bodies absorbs more
heat than shiny bodies which emit or reflect heat.
From this experiment it was learnt that the important factors to consider when designing
radiation heat transfer systems are reflectivity, emissivity, transmissivity, fraction of energy and
wavelength. Design of many thermodynamic systems is usually based in the factors mentioned
above and also on the suitable materials. The laws, equations and materials used in this
experiment are used when engineers are solving problems in our society.
Appendix:

Appendix Table1: Calculated error in Pail emissivity

Appendix Table2: Black Body Radiation Table used to interpolate

Appendix Table3: Black Body Radiation Table used to interpolate part 2