Heat Flux Estimation in a Nonlinear Inverse Heat Conduction Problem With Moving Boundary

Abstract

The estimation of heat flux in the nonlinear heat conduction problem becomes more challenging when the material at the boundary loses its mass due to phase change, chemical erosion, oxidation, or mechanical removal. In this paper, a new gradient-type method with an adjoint problem is employed to predict the unknown time-varying heat flux at the receding surface in the nonlinear heat conduction problem. Particular features of this novel approach are discussed and examined. Results obtained by the new method for several test cases are benchmarked and analyzed using numerical experiments with simulated exact and noisy measurements. Exceedingly reliable estimation on the heat flux can be obtained from the knowledge of the transient temperature recordings, even in the case with measurement errors. In order to evaluate the performance characteristics of the present inverse scheme, simulations are conducted to analyze the effects of this technique with regard to the conjugate gradient method with an adjoint problem and variable metric method with an adjoint problem. The results obtained show that the present inverse scheme distinguishably accelerates the convergence rate, which approve the well capability of the method for this type of heat conduction problems.