A Hybrid SN-PN Formulation for Solution of the Boltzmann Transport Equation for Phonons

A generalized form of the Ballistic-Diffusive Equations (BDE) for approximate solution of the Boltzmann Transport Equation (BTE) for phonons is formulated. The formulation presented here is new and general in the sense that, unlike previously published formulations of the BDE, it does not require a priori knowledge of the specific heat capacity of the material. Furthermore, it does not introduce artifacts such as media and ballistic temperatures. As a consequence, the boundary conditions have clear physical meaning. In formulating the BDE, the phonon intensity is split into two components: ballistic and diffusive. The ballistic component is traditionally determined using a viewfactor formulation, while the diffusive component is solved by invoking spherical harmonics expansions. Use of the viewfactor approach for the ballistic component is prohibitive for complex large-scale geometries. Instead, in this work, the ballistic equation is solved using two different established methods that are appropriate for use in complex geometries, namely the discrete ordinates method (DOM), and the control angle discrete ordinates method (CADOM). Results of each method for solving the BDE are compared against benchmark Monte Carlo results, as well as solutions of the BTE using standalone DOM and CADOM for a two-dimensional transient heat conduction problem at various Knudsen numbers. It is found that standalone CADOM (for BTE) and hybrid CADOM-P1 (for BDE) yield the best accuracy. The hybrid CADOM-P1 is found to be the best method in terms of computational efficiency.