Transient radiative heating characteristics of slabs in a walking beam type reheating furnace is predicted by the finite-volume method (FVM) for radiation, The FVM can calculate the radiative intensity absorbed and emitted by hot gas as well as emitted by the wall with curvilinear geometry. The non-gray weighted sum of gray gas model (WSGGM) which is more realistic than the gray gas model is used for better accurate prediction of gas radiation. The block-off procedure is applied to the treatment of the slabs inside which intensity has no meaning. Entire domain is divided into eight sub-zones to specify temperature distribution, and each sub-zone has different temperatures and the same species composition. Temperature field of a slab is acquired by solving the transient 3D heat conduction equation. Incident radiation flux into a slab is used for the boundary condition of the heat conduction equation governing the slab temperature. The movement of the slabs is taken into account and calculation is performed during the residence time of a slab in the furnace. The slab heating characteristics is also investigated for the various slab residence times. Main interest of this study is the transient variation of the average temperature and temperature non-uniformity of the slabs. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.