Improved Inverse Method for Radiative Characteristics of Closed-Cell Absorbing Porous Media Jaona Randrianalisoa * and Dominique Baillis Centre de Thermique de Lyon, Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon, 69621 Villeurbanne Cedex, France and Laurent Pilon University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095-1597 DOI: 10.2514/1.16684 Radiative characteristics such as the extinction coefcient, the scattering albedo, and the scattering phase function of fused quartz containing closed cells are determined by using an inverse method based on theoretical and experimental bidirectional transmittances. The theoretical transmittances are obtained by solving the radiative transfer equation with the discrete ordinate method. Improvements have been made over previously reported experimental determination of porous fused quartz radiative characteristics by using a more accurate phase function and an adaptive quadrature to compute more precisely the intensities in the measurement directions. In addition, a two-step inverse method to compute accurately and simultaneously the radiative parameters has been developed. The results are shown to be independent of samples thickness. Exhaustive comparison between experimental measurements of hemispherical transmittance and reectance and computational results using the retrieved radiative characteristics shows good agreement. The retrieved absorption coefcient of porous fused quartz appears to be more realistic than that reported in our earlier publication. Nomenclature a = bubble radius, m b = corrective factor used in Eq. (10) c ij = matrix elements of the sensitivity coefcients J e = sample thickness, m f 1 , f 2 = spectral weights of the HenyeyGreenstein phase function HG g = spectral asymmetry factor g 1 , g 2 = spectral parameters of the HenyeyGreenstein phase function HG I = spectral radiation intensity, W m 2 sr 1 J = matrix of the sensitivity coefcients k = volumetric absorption coefcient, m 1 Mb = quadrature order of the discrete ordinate method m = fused quartz refractive index Nb = number of measurement directions n = number of unknown parameters including !, , f 1 , g 1 , and/or g 2 p = unknown parameter such as !, , f 1 , g 1 , or g 2 Q = ratio of the measured scattered to the incident radiation uxes r = interface reectivity S = minimization function T = spectral transmittance or reectance, sr 1 T = average spectral transmittance or reectance, sr 1 w = angular weight of the discrete ordinate method w 0 = angular weight of the two Gaussian quadratures associated to the experimental directions x = bubble size parameter y = spatial coordinate along the sample thickness, m = angle between incident radiation and measurement directions, rad = volumetric extinction coefcient, m 1 = relaxation factor used in Eq. (5) = divergence angle of the incident radiation, rad  = solid angle, sr = Kronecker delta function " 0 , " 1 , " 2 , " 3 = coefcients of the third order polynomial estimating T sca in Eq. (17) = cosine of the angle = scattering angle dened in Eq. (21), rad = angle between incident radiation direction and radiation inside the porous medium, rad = fused quartz absorption index = radiation wavelength, m = cosine of the angle i = weight associated to measurement in the direction i 1 to Nb = random number dened between 0 and 1 = dimensionless sensitivity coefcient = standard deviation 0 = optical thickness = spectral phase function = azimuthal angle, rad = experimental error, % ! = volumetric scattering albedo Superscripts = refers to hemispherical transmittance = refers to hemispherical reectance Subscripts bulk = refers to the continuous phase (quartz) coll = refers to collimated radiation Received 17 March 2005; revision received 26 October 2005; accepted for publication 26 October 2005. Copyright © 2005 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved. Copies of this paper may be made for personal or internal use, on condition that the copier pay the $10.00 per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923; include the code $10.00 in correspondence with the CCC. * Ph.D. Student, CETHIL UMR CNRS 5008, Domaine Scientique de la Doua, INSA de Lyon, Bâtiment Sadi Carnot, 9 rue de la Physique; jaona. randrianalisoa@insa-lyon.fr. Assistant Professor, CETHIL UMR CNRS 5008, Domaine Scientique de la Doua, INSA de Lyon, Bâtiment Sadi Carnot, 9 rue de la Physique; dominique.baillis@insa-lyon.fr. Assistant Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, 37-132 Engineering IV, Box 951597; pilon@seas.ucla.edu. JOURNAL OF THERMOPHYSICS AND HEAT TRANSFER Vol. 20, No. 4, OctoberDecember 2006 871