A new approach for the estimation of temperature-dependent thermal properties by solving transient inverse heat conduction problems

A new method is proposed for estimating temperature-dependent thermal properties using solutions to transient inverse heat conduction problems. The prior information on the functional form of the thermal properties is not necessary for the proposed approach. The unknown thermal property is treated as the optimization variable, and the errors to be minimized are the differences between the calculated temperatures and the measured ones. The least-squares method is employed for the solution of the ill-posed inverse problem. The main contribution of this work is to introduce the complex-variable-differentiation method into transient inverse heat conduction problems, for the calculation of sensitivity coefficient. The inverse estimations of the heat capacity, the thermal conductivity and the thermal diffusivity are reported. Examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness, efficiency and accuracy of the inverse approach as well as the potential to engineering applications. The effects of measurement errors on the inverse results are also investigated. ► Inverse estimations of the three kinds of thermal properties are reported. ► The complex-variable-differentiation method is first used in the inverse heat conduction problem. ► Information on the functional form of thermal properties is not necessary for the inverse approach. ► The results here point to promising candidates for engineering applications.