Estimation of heat flux and temperature distributions in a composite strip and homogeneous foundation

In this study, an inverse algorithm based on the conjugate gradient method and the discrepancy principle is applied to estimate the unknown time-dependent heat flux and temperature distributions for the system composed of a multi-layer composite strip and semi-infinite foundation, from the knowledge of temperature measurements taken within the strip. It is assumed that no prior information is available on the functional form of the unknown heat flux; hence the procedure is classified as the function estimation in inverse calculation. Results show that an excellent estimation on the time-dependent heat flux can be obtained for the test case considered in this study.