A SIMPLIFIED CONJUGATE-GRADIENT METHOD FOR SHAPE IDENTIFICATION BASED ON THERMAL DATA

The present study is focused on simplification of the conjugate-gradient method so as to extend the flexibility of the inverse heat transfer method for applications in the shape identification problems associated with various forms of objective functions. The capability of the simplified conjugate-gradient method (SCGM) in seeking the shapes of inner structures is tested for several cases. These test cases use three kinds of thermal data measured on the outer surface of a solid body, including temperature distribution, local heat flux distribution, and the overall heat transfer rate. The aim of these test cases is to identify the boundary of the inner voids in the solid bodies based on the thermal data. Results show that for all test cases, the optimization process leads to acceptable accuracy for the objective functions of different forms.