Figure 1: Moving sensors facing a rectangular radiator.

The heat flux sensor in Energy2D can be used to measure radiative heat flux, as well as conductive and convective heat fluxes. Radiative heat flux depends on not only the temperature of the object the sensor measures but also the angle at which it faces the object. The latter is known as the view factor.

In radiative heat transfer, a view factor between two surfaces A and B is the proportion of the radiation which leaves surface A that strikes surface B. If the two surfaces face each other directly, the view factor is greater than the case in which they do not. If the two surfaces are closer, the view factor is greater.

Figure 2: Rotating sensors inside and outside a ring radiator.

To conveniently visualize the effect of a view factor, Energy2D allows you to attach a heat flux sensor to a moving or rotating particle, with a settable linear or angular velocity. In this way, we can set up sensors to automatically “scan” the field of radiation heat flux like a radar.

Figure 1 shows a moving sensor and a rotating sensor, as well as the data they record. A third sensor is also placed to the right of an object that is being heated by the radiator. This object has an emissivity of one so it also radiates. Its radiation flux is recorded by the third sensor whose data shows a slowly increasing heat flux as the object slowly warms up.

As an interesting test case, Figure 2 shows two rotating sensors, one placed precisely at the center of a ring radiator and the other outside. The almost steady line recorded by the first sensor suggests that the view factor at the center does not change, which makes sense. The small sawtooth shape is due to the limitation of discretization in our numerical simulation.