The Galerkin method for calculating radiant interchange between surfaces

The Galerkin method is applied to transform a system of integral equations governing radiant interchange between surfaces into a set of algebraic equations for the determination of the expansion coefficients associated with the representation of radiosities. The method leads to the same results that are obtainable by the combination of the variational and Ritz methods; but, the principal advantage is that it is directly applicable to the governing integral equation, hence eliminates the need for finding the variational form of the problem and provides a simple, straightforward approach for solving radiation transfer among surfaces.