Most radiation analysis tools in use in the aerospace industry assume that grey conditions hold. That is, over the range of temperatures considered, optical properties are assumed to have a constant value with respect to wavelength. This reasonable approximation for systems that are near room temperature may show significant error at temperature extremes, particulary for conductive materials at cryogenic temperatures. Other areas where non-grey analysis may be appropriate is in furnace and lamp design, and in systems with specialized optical filters such as thermalphotovoltaics.
This short course reviews the definitions of optical properties and discusses the conditions for which greyness holds. A number of approaches to modeling non-grey radiation are discussed, and the approach used by Thermal Desktop is described. Non-grey analysis with materials that have temperature dependent properties at a given wavelength is also discussed. The new methodology is reviewed, in particular its dynamic integration with the thermal analyzer. Example cases are presented to highlight appropriate areas for non-grey radiation analysis.