A diffusion-synthetic acceleration algorithm based on the finite element method for calculation of radiative heat transfer was developed.The algorithm increased the computational efficiency of the conventional source-iteration technique in the simulation of radiative heat transfer for the scattering-dominated problem.The present method enhanced the accuracy of iteration by using the P1 diffusion-approximation method to rectify the scattering source term of the radiative transfer equation

and increased the efficiency of calculation.The results indicated that the algorithm could simulate radiative heat transfer in absorbing and scattering media accurately and efficiently.It could obviously increase the efficiency and reduce the computational time of the finite element method.With increasing optical thickness and albedo of the medium

the acceleration result of the algorithm was more obvious and the computation required less time.