Inverse estimation of surface heat flux for three-dimensional transient heat conduction problem

Inverse estimation of surface heat flux for three-dimensional transient heat conduction problem from temperature measurements is a typical Inverse Heat Conduction Problem(IHCP). In this paper, based on the numerical simulation of three-dimensional transient heat conduction problem with the Finite Volume Method(FVM), this IHCP is converted to a parameter optimization problem and two estimation methods, Sequential Function Method(SFM) and Conjugate Gradient Method(CGM), are developed. After applying these two methods to a typical exemplified case, it can be seen that both estimation methods are feasible and not sensitive to the measurement noise. The advantage of the SFM lies in that the formulation and programming of SFM is straightforward and relatively easy. But there is a parameter of r need to be carefully selected because this parameter plays an important role on the inversion result. On the other hand, there is no free parameter in the CGM, but the deduction and programming of CGM is complicated and the estimated result of CGM is of comparable accuracy with the estimated result of SFM.