Abstract
A method for computing the radial temperature distributions in wall-stabilised arcs is developed and is applied to the treatment of D-line emission from a sodium arc lamp. The method adopts a radial temperature distribution containing two free parameters whose values are derived from two coupled nonlinear equations, one describing the energy balance on the arc axis, and the other the integrated energy balance. The radiative terms in the energy balance equations are obtained from a solution of the exact transfer equation.