An inverse hyperbolic heat conduction problem in estimating surface heat flux of a living skin tissue

In this study, an inverse algorithm based on the conjugate gradient method and the discrepancy principle is applied to solve the inverse hyperbolic heat conduction problem in estimating the unknown time-dependent surface heat flux in a living skin tissue from the temperature measurements taken within the tissue. The inverse solutions will be justified based on the numerical experiments in which three different heat flux distributions are to be determined. The temperature data obtained from the direct problem are used to simulate the temperature measurements. The influence of measurement errors upon the precision of the estimated results is also investigated. Results show that an excellent estimation on the time-dependent surface heat flux can be obtained for the test cases considered in this study. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.