A novel banding method for efficient radiation transfer calculation in switching arcs

The Line-by-Line (LBL) method for radiation transfer calculation produces accurate results but is computationally expensive due to the consideration of individual frequency lines across the spectrum. A novel banding method has been proposed in this work to group the frequencies into a limited number of bands with significantly improved accuracy in comparison with existing banding techniques. Banding is determined only by a characteristic temperature of the arc and blackbody emission, making it independent of the absorption spectrum of a gas or gaseous mixture. Results show that for a band number of 237, the new method reduces the computational time by 99.95% while maintaining acceptable accuracy when used in engineering simulations involving switching arcs. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by comparing the radiative flux divergence from the Discrete Ordinates Method (DOM) where banding is implemented with results from the LBL method. • A novel spectral banding method is developed for radiative transfer calculations. • The method enables accurate banding without gas-specific absorption data. • The EEB approach cuts computational cost by 99.95% versus Line-by-Line method. • Validation against LBL shows high accuracy with low computational expense. • The methodology is applicable to radiative transfer problems beyond switching arcs.