Inverse Heat Transfer

Introduction

In many studies related to heat transport phenomena, it is often needed to quantify the heat transfer process, e.g. obtain the heat flux and/or heat transfer coefficient (HTC) at (a) specific boundary(ies). In most situations, researchers or engineers rely on experimental measurements to obtain temperature data, based on which the heat flux and/or HTCs on a surface can be calculated. The figure below gives a typical approach to measure the temperature in order to characterize the heat transfer, e.g. HTCs at a surface. After obtaining the temperature data, calculation of the HTCs is usually not easy. One way is to use the trial-and-error method which is labor-intensive and only feasible for simple cases such as constant heat flux or HTC. The other is to use the inverse model, which conduct the calculation automatically in a “smart” way and is applicable for more complicated conditions, such as position and time dependent HTCs.

Theory

The figure below illustrates the work flow of the inverse algorithm.

Work flow of the inverse algorithm

The code will be available online soon - To be added.