Learning Forum

[nicko627]

I've been doing a simple analysis with an Irradiance sensor some distance away from a sphere emitting radiation. I put a mirror behind the sphere, which reflects the radiation back towards the sensor. 

The simulation seems to work fine, except when I change the reflectivity of the mirror, the amount of irradiance doesn't change at all. I would expect if I change reflectivity to 0 vs if it is at 100, then that would at least have some effect on the rays that bounce off the mirror and the calculation of irradiance. Am I misinterpreting the reflectivity? I'm essentially equating it to emissivity. The material I'm using is opaque for everything, and I didn't choose anything from a library: just the default material where you can change the reflectivity.

I tried using Fluent or Mechanical for this same type of simulation, but I couldn't figure out how to get those set up to give the results I was expecting. I don't care about the heat transfer, just the ray tracing and a plot of where the rays are landing most often on a sensor.

Let me know if you have any other questions, in case I left something out.

[Ashish Khemka]

Hi,

 

Please see if the following link helps you:

GPU-Based Compute for Ray Tracing Makes Simulating Light More Accessible and Powerful Than Ever (ansys.com)

 

Regards,

Ashish Khemka

[nicko627]

Hi Ashish,

I checked the link, and it didn't answer my original question. I was curious why reflectivity of a surface didn't seem to change the irradiance that I was measuring at a sensor, even though it seems like reducing reflectivity would reduce the amount of light being reflected and sent to the sensor.

[Thomas Martineau]

Hi, 

Could you add a picture of your setup ?

Thanks