Abstract: | An inverse radiation problem is investigated where the spatially varying heat transfer coefficient h(z) and the absorption coefficient κ in the radiant cooler are estimated simultaneously from temperature measurements. The inverse radiation problem is solved through the minimization of a performance function, which is expressed by the sum of square residuals between calculated and observed temperature, using the conjugate gradient method. The gradient of the performance function is evaluated by means of the improved adjoint variable method that can take care of both the function estimation and the parameter estimation efficiently. The present method is found to estimate h(z) and κ with reasonable accuracy even with noisy temperature measurements. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |