3D coupled conduction-convection problem using in-house heat transfer experiments in conjunction with hybrid inverse approach

Purpose Many a times, the information about the boundary heat flux is obtained only through inverse approach by locating the thermocouple or temperature sensor in accessible boundary. Most of the work reported in literature for the estimation of unknown parameters is based on heat conduction model. Inverse approach using conjugate heat transfer is found inadequate in literature. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to develop a 3D conjugate heat transfer model without model reduction for the estimation of heat flux and heat transfer coefficient from the measured temperatures. Design/methodology/approach A 3 D conjugate fin heat transfer model is solved using commercial software for the known boundary conditions. Navier–Stokes equation is solved to obtain the necessary temperature distribution of the fin. Later, the complete model is replaced with neural network to expedite the computations of the forward problem. For the inverse approach, genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are applied to estimate the unknown parameters. Eventually, a hybrid algorithm is proposed by combining PSO with Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (BFGS) method that outperforms GA and PSO. Findings The authors demonstrate that the evolutionary algorithms can be used to obtain accurate results from simulated measurements. Efficacy of the hybrid algorithm is established using real time measurements. The hybrid algorithm (PSO-BFGS) is more efficient in the estimation of unknown parameters for experimentally measured temperature data compared to GA and PSO algorithms. Originality/value Surrogate model using ANN based on computational fluid dynamics simulations and in-house steady state fin experiments to estimate the heat flux and heat transfer coefficient separately using GA, PSO and PSO-BFGS.