Rev Gin Therm (1998) 37, 17-30

0 Elsevier, Paris

A guide for the use of the function specification method

for 2D inverse heat conduction problems

Cilles Blanc t, Martin Raynaud a*, The Hiep Chau b

a Centre de thermique, Esa CNRS 5008, /NSA de Lyon, bdt. 404, 20 av. Albert-Einstein, 69621 Villeurbanne cedex, France
b iiectricitd de France, direction des &udes et recherches, departement refour dexpkience, mesures et essais,
6 quai Watier, 78401 Chatou cedex

(Received 13 December 1997; accepted 7 November 1997)

Abstract-The solution of the multidimensional inverse heat conduction problem (IHCP) requires much practice and several runs
to determine the many parameters involved in the solution. This paper describes a step by step guide to identifying all of the
parameters involved in the function specification method with spatial regularization: namely the number of future temperatures,
the value of the regularization coefficient and the sensor locations. It also intends to show the new difficulties that arise from
solving a 2D IHCP compared to a 1D IHCP. The issue of finding the appropriate number of sensors and their locations so as
to obtain a desired surface heat flux spatial resolution is addressed. An experimental set-up was built for the validation of the
methodology. It also shows that the determination of surface temperature and flux that vary in both time and space from remote
temperature measurements is possible when the sensors are properly placed. 0 Elsevier, Paris.
inverse / heat / conduction / multidimensional / guide / sensors / hyper-parameters
R&urn6 - Guide. pour Iutilisation de la mdthode de spkification de fonction pour la r&solution de problemes inverses
bidimensionnels de conduction de la chaleur. La resolution de probkmes inverses de conduction multidimensionnelle de
la chaleur (PICC) requiert une longue pratique ; plusieurs essais sont nkcessaires pour determiner Iensemble des paramktres
intervenant dans la solution. Cet article decrit un guide qui permet de choisir tous les parametres intetvenant dans la mkthode
de spkcification de fonction avec rkgularisation spatiale, a savoir : le nombre de temperatures futures, la valeur du coefficient de
rkgularisation et le positionnement des capteurs. Les nouvelles difficult&s qui apparaissent lors du passage dun probleme 1D g
un probkme 2D sont kgalement indiqukes. Une mkthode permettant de trouver le nombre de capteurs adCquat ainsi que leur
emplacement, pour obtenir une rkolution spatiale donnke, est egalement d&rite. La mkthodologie proposke a et6 valid&e grke
a un montage expkrimental. Les r&.ultats montrent que la dhtermination de temperatures et de flux surfaciques variant dans le
temps et dans Iespace est possible, a condition que les capteurs soient correctement positionnks. @ Elsevier, Paris.
inverse / chaleur / conduction / multidimensionnel / guide / capteurs / hyper-paramltres

Nomenclature F lag time for TO. . . .. .. . . S

h convective coefficient. . . .. . W.m2.K-
2 -1
a diffusivity ....................... m .s J objective function
-3 .K-l k conductivity . . . .. J.m-l.K-l
specific heat .................... J.m
i characteristic dimension. ......... m A4 number of unknowns

PI measurement vector (M) ......... K2.W-.m2 n outer normal

[Da] regularization vector (M) ......... K2.W- .m4 N number of sensors
e distance sensor-surface ........... m 4 heat flux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... .. ..
M heat flux vector (M) .
T number of future times step
PI sensitivity matrix (M x M) . K2.W-2.m4
* Correspondence and reprints.
resent address: Michigan State University, East Lansing, IS4 regularization matrix (M x M) K2.W-2.m4

MI +&324-1226, USA t time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S

17
 C. Blanc et al,

T calculated temperature. K The main objectJive of this paper is to provide a

Tj reference temperature. K step by step guide to facilit,ate the use of the function
To initial temperature K specification method for multidimensional problems. A
v domain brief outline of the paper follows. First, a mathematical
description of the IHCP is given. Next, the function
x coordinate (I, y: 2) 111
specification is briefly described and all the parameters
XS curvilinear coordinate. m
involved in the technique are investigated. Then the step
Y measured temperature K by step guide itself is given. Afterwards, an inversion
z sensitivity coefficient. K.W- .m2
with experimental data obtained with an experimental
set-up, especially designed for this study, is performed
Greek symbols and discussed.
regularization coefficient Even if an attempt is made to provide the minimtml
it time step.. s amount of information necessary for a beginner. it, is
4 flux step between n and n + 1. w.rr1c2 preferable that the reader bc familiar with: i) the direct
[Ay] flux step vector (M) W.IIlC heat conduction problem; ii) numerical methods; iii)
density......................... kgW3 temperature measurements. Moreover, some practice of
P the lD-IHCP is recommended before tackling 2D-IHCP.
7 rate of representation. K.W-,n12

Sabscrrpt

i at the location i
2. INVERSE HEAT CONDUCTION
Superxmpt PROBLEM OVERVIEW
n at time nAt
The temperature distribution in the domain V
(figure 1) is governed by the parabolic partial differential
equation
1. INTRODUCTION
kAT=pcg in V for t > 0 (1)
The modeling of heat conduction problems. even for subject to the various types of boundary conditions
complex geometry, has become relatively easy with mod-
ern software. Nevertheless, for many industrial prob- k VT.n = q(X,s) imposed heat flux (24
lems, it is often difficult to know precisely the thermo- kVT.n = 1~(X,S, t) convective heat
physical properties and boundary condit,ions. Thermal (2b)
[Tf(&. t) - T(X,q. t)] transfer
characteristics can be determined on separate material
samples. On the other hand, the thermal boundary T(X,,t) =T,.(X,,t) imposed (2c)
conditions must often be estimated from temperature temperatures
measurements performed during the process that is
being simulated: the IHCP (inverse heat conduction
problem) must be solved. Then. an inverse heat corl- 5 Convective boundary condition
insulated
duction method must be used to recover: from rernotc condition
sensors information, the surface terriperature. heat flux
or heat transfer coefficient. Many methods are currently
used to solve this problem and we can choose between,
function specification methods [I]. Tikhonov regular- Imposed flux
izat,ion methods [2]! adjoint iterative methods [3. 4, 51. condition
space marching methods [6, 71; just to list the most
well known. All these methods have tunable parameters
that must be adjusted to obtain good results. These
stabilizing parameters are also called hyper-parameters.
When applied properly, these methods give similar re-
sults [8- 111; they have the same accuracy. But: most
of the time, great knowledge and long practice times
for a given method are necessary to realize an inver-
sion with a proper selection of the hyper-parameters. imposed temperature
For an industrial utilization of inverse methods it can
be interesting to minimize the level of learning that is Figure 1. An example of complex shape volume with different
necessary, especially for multidimensional problems. thermal boundary conditions.

18
 A guide for the use of the function specification method for 2D inverse heat conduction problems

and the initial condition than the noise measurement. The loss of the causal
behaviour, i.e. the flux depends on the future and not
T (X, 0) = To(X) in V (3) only on the past, introduced a bias. It means that, when
used with exact data, a solution closed but different
The inverse heat conduction problem occurs when from the exact solution is obtained: the variations
some boundary conditions are unknown and tempera- are smoothed. But, when used with noisy data, the
ture measurements are employed to predict them. Most instability is decreased. All the methods try to find a
of the time, the unknown forcing terms are expressed good balance between sensitivity to error measurements
in terms of heat flux, i.e. the unknown boundary con- and bias. These notions of bias and sensitivity are the
dition is formulated with equation (2a). If the surface base of inverse methods and must be well understood. In
temperature is necessary then the direct problem can addition to the previous references, other papers [12-151
be solved, knowing all the flux values. Moreover, based or books [16-191 describe very well the most important
on the surface temperature and the heat flux, the con- facts and difficulties that are specific to the lD-IHCP.
vective heat transfer coefficient can be calculated from
equation (4) if the reference temperature is known. For industrial and practical study, the calculation
of the temperature field relies on a numerical method
which discretizes the spatial and temporal domain. The
h= [Tf- T] compromise that must be done between the sensitivity
and the bias depends strongly on the time step chosen.
Therefore, the surface heat flux can be chosen as the The IHCP is much more difficult to solve with a small
unknown even if it is the surface temperature or the heat time step than with a large time step because the
transfer coefficient that are primarily of interest. Note sensitivity to measurement noises increases when the
that, this choice is the most common and most accurate time step decreases.
for solving the IHCP [20]. Then, in this paper, the For 2D-IHCP instead of having one unknown at each
heat flux formulation is used for the unknown boundary time step, as in lD-IHCP, the number of unknowns is
condition. equal to the number of forcing terms that are used, in
When the temperature measurements are not made the numerical method, to represent the unknown surface
on the unknown boundary condition but at remote heat flux. Nevertheless, a heat flux decomposition, in
locations, some difficulties, which do not exist in the a finite basis, can allow us to decrease this number.
direct problem, arise. Due to the diffusive nature of the The heat flux in figure 3 exhibits a linear piecewise
heat conduction! changes in the boundary conditions function and the unknowns are the flux values at the
give damped and lagged temperature variations at interpolation points. The number and position of the
an internal point. When a change occurs in the interpolation points must allow a good reconstitution of
surface heat flux, the temperature rise, at an internal the spatial variations. The value of the spatial step, like
measurement location and for a small time period after the time step, is a crucial parameter. A fine step, which
the pulse, is very small in comparison with the noise gives a good spatial resolution of the flux! leads to a
(figure 2). During the inversion, this noise induces a high large number of unknowns and consequently increases
inaccuracy in the surface heat flux estimation. Various the difficulty of the inversion. On the other hand, if
stabilizing techniques have been proposed to minimize the spatial step is too coarse then the approxirnation
this instability [l--7], all of them, even if it is not with a linear piecewise function of the true heat flux
obvious, use the notion of future time measurements,
i.e. the flux at a time n is estimated using measurements
at times m > n when the temperature rise is larger
Force term

exact

1t
w
Minimum fidure times : temperature
measurementrise sensor
mesh
equalsto the noise unknown surface flux
Figure 3. Linear approximation of the unknown surface flux
Figure 2. Lag and damping effect in the 1D IHCP. variation for a given mesh.

19
 G. Blanc et al.

may not be appropriate and consequently the results estimated curve

are poor. Nevertheless. if the user has some a priori
knowledge of the spatial variation shape, between two
consecutive unknowns, a mesh can be used with an
interpolation that is not necessarily linear. This prior
information allows us to use fewer unknowns and to
obtain a good estimation. For a fine spatial step% the
interpolation type (linear, parabolic, etc.) between two
unknowns does not lead to significant differences in the
results. Then? without prior information, it is preferable
to use linear interpolation with a constant step between
two consecutive interpolation points.
This is new compared to the ID IHCP where only
the time step had to be chosen. It will be shown later
in this paper how it is possible to chose the temporal
k:own
n-l . . n+l ?I+2 +I-~* time
and spatial step and how the number and unknown unknown
locations are linked to the total number of sensors and Figure 4. Constant piecewise approximation of the unknown
sensor locations. surface flux time history at a given interpolation point.
Let us consider that the number and location of in-
terpolation points arc fixed. Then the multidimensional
temperature at time n and point i. and Tp the calculated
IHCP can be stated as follows: given a direct solution of
temperature for t,he same location and time.
equations (l)-(3) and the remote temperature measure-
ments: find for each time step the values of the flux at This expression for J involves future time tcmper-
the interpolation points. Among the available methods atures. The temporal stabilization, for the function
for solving this problern. we have chosen the function specification, is obtained through the temporary as-
specification method [21] b ecausc it is simple in concept sumption that each flux q! is constant over the 7 future
and one of the most efficient. for 2D problems, from it temperatures:
time computing point of view. A short description of
this rnethod is given in the next paragraph.

Then the minimization of J:

3. THE FUNCTION SPECIFICATION

METHOD WITH SPATIAL
leads to a matrix system:
RECULARIZATION
PI [Ad = PI
In t,he function specification method. the time history
of each unknown--the flux at each interpolation point The term. of the matrix [S], for row l and colurrm ,&
is approximated by a constant piecewise function as is:
shown in figuLL?%:4. It is a sequential method which
means that the unknowns are determined for the first
time step first, then for the second time step and so
on. Assuming that the temperature field and the fluxes
for time n (q;L,. ,qF. , q&) are known, the fluxes and the term of the measurement vector [D] for row E
for time n + 1 ($+I. . , qF+, , qi:l) arc determined is:
b,v minimizing the difference. in the least square sense.
between the calculated and measured temperatures. The
objective function J is thus:
.J (q;+l:. , $+I,. .q;:)
In equations (9) and (lo), the ZZyb term is the
n+7 _ TJ (q;+l., .q;+1.. ,q;,:l)) sensitivity coefficient for time IL and point i to the
Y 1
! heat, flux of the basis function. The mathematical
I
definition of the sensitivity coefficient is [16]:
(5)

where N is the number of temperature sensors. I

the mmlber of future temperatures. Y, the measured

20
 A guide for the use of the function specification method for 2D inverse heat conduction problems

Physically, it shows that a flux variation Aq;+ leads As one can see, the use of the function specification
to a temperature variation ATin+ at the sensor location method with spatial regularization involves many
i. The solution of the matrix system (8) gives the values parameters. As shown below, they can be divided into
of each unknown. In the function specification method, three groups.
the number of future time steps T provides the temporal Group 1: known parameters
stabilization. When r increases, the bias increases, which ~ parameters that define the shape and size of the
means that the temporal resolution decreases but the solid,
method is more stable.
For 2D problems a spatial stabilization must be ~ solid thermal properties.
added to the temporal stabilization. As a matter of fact, Group 2: parameters linked with the temporal
one can feel that many surface flux distributions can stabilization
give rise to the same temperature variations at a finite ~ initial conditions,
number of locations and discrete times. Reciprocally, the
~ time step.
inversion, for a given set of temperature measurements,
can give several surface heat flux distributions which ~ number of future temperatures.
can oscillate in space and time. The time oscillations are Group 3: parameters linked with the spatial stabi-
reduced through the use of the temporary assumption of lization
constant heat flux but a spatial stabilization must also
~ number and position of interpolation points,
be introduced somehow to avoid spatial fluctuations.
Among the possible methods, the simplest consists ~ regularization coefficient,
of including a regularization term in the objective ~ number of sensors,
function J:
~ location of sensors.
J (&+l,. ,q;+l,. ,qzl) = 5
z=l L3=1
2 (yn+l - T;+)
1
J
The split between parameters
and spatial stabilization
sense that the instability
involved in temporal
is more or less artificial
when it appears is global.
in the

M-l
Nevertheless, it shows that the third group is specific to
multidimensional IHCP. For 1D IHCP, only one sensor
+ac (q;t-+:
- zq,+l
+ q;t++:)(12) location e must be chosen.
h=2
All of these parameters must be chosen before the
Herein, a second order regularization term is used inversion. The parameters of the first group must be well
[15], which limits the spatial heat flux slope variations known, as in a direct problem, otherwise it may lead to
from one interpolation point to another. The higher large errors in the estimates. It is assumed, in this paper,
the value of the regularization coefficient o, the smaller that their accuracies are good enough so that the errors
the fluctuations. The minimization of the new objective they introduce are lower in comparison with others. The
function, with the same assumptions as before, gives a guide for choosing the stabilizing parameters, specific
new matrix system: to the IHCP and called hyper parameters. is now given.
WI + [Sal)Pql = PI + Pal (13)
with
1 -2 1
4. DESCRIPTION OF THE GUIDE
-2 5 -4 1 0
1 -4 6 4 1
The trial and error method has been used by many
[Sal = Q . ... (14) to determine the hyper-parameters. The procedure is
..
the following. A temporal and spatial variation of the
1 -4 6 -4 1 surface heat flux is chosen and a direct conduction
0 1 -4 5 -2 method is used to calculate the temperature histories at
various locations. Then this data is contaminated by a
1 -2 1 noise to simulate real temperature measurements. Next,

4F
and these simulated measurements are introduced in the
inverse conduction numerical code to recover the surface

I:1 (15)
heat flux. The correctness of the inversion is evaluated
from the comparison
fluxes. If the comparison
between the exact and estimated
is poor then the sensor
locations, number of future times or regularization
coefficients are changed and another comparison is done
until a good set is found.

21
 G. Blanc et al

This trial and error method has two major inconve- This semi-empirical criterion shows that the time
niences. Firstly, the results can depend strongly on the step size must be adjusted as a function of the sensors
temporal and spatial heat flux that is being used for the depth and the solids diffusivity. The final choice, for the
simulation. Secondly, users have no information on the time step, is a balance between this criterion and the
changes needed between two simulations. Then, a long temporal resolution that the user needs. It also depends
practice is necessary to decrease the number of tries. on the measurement noise level. Measurements of very
The step by step procedure described next, does not high quality allow the use of a smaller time step.
determine automatically the best parameters values.
but gives appropriate tools to find these values without
a complete simulation. 4.1.3. Number T of future times

4.1. Step one: temporal stabilization The number of future times is the last parameter
parameters which will influence the temporal stability. The deter-
mination of this integer requires us to introduce a new
concept: the rate of representation [23]. The rate of rep-
4.1 .l. Initial temperature distribution resentation is a quantitative criterion that indicates if a
particular unknown is well or poorly represented by the
For many industrial cases. the initial temperature
set of sensors. The rate of representation is calculated
distribution is rarely uniform and sometimes not well
from the sensitivity coefficients. For the N sensors and
known. But such a distribution is required to start the
inversion. If the initial temperature is not well known for the basis functions associated to the unknown qc
(figure 3), it is given by:
then the estimated flux will be in error. Evidently, the
influence of this error propagation decreases with time.
An accurate heat flux for the first time of interest (t = 0)
can be obtained if the temperature measurements start (19)
before, i.e. for t = -F. The value of F depends on
the temperature fields accuracy at time -F. A simple
solution is to set the whole body to a uniform initial Three types of parameters can change the rate of
temperature that is equal to the average of the measured representation. One is the number of unknowns and
temperature at time -F, with F equal to five times the their locations, another is the number of sensors and
thermal characteristic time of the body: their locations and the last is the number of future
times r. The number and location of the unknowns
must be chosen by the user from his a priori knowledge
of the phenomenon that is being studied, see 5 2.
where d is the characteristic dimension of the body So, the rate of representation is a tool to determine
(most of the time the largest thickness). If the initial simultaneously, the number of future time steps and the
temperature distribution is somewhat known, then it number of sensors and their locations. It shows that
should be used and F can be decreased a little. This spatial and temporal stability are linked. The inversion
technique was used in many practical caSes and gave is stable if each unknown is equally represented by
good results. If measurements are not available for t < 0. the set of sensors, i.e. the rate of representation must,
then a specific inverse method for the reconstruction of be as uniform as possible. The number of sensors
initial conditions can be used [22]. and their locations are correct if none of the rates
of representation, of any of the unknowns, are much
less than 75 % of the most well represented unknown.
4.1.2. Time step The easiest way to check this criterion is to plot
The time step plays a key role in the inverse the normalized rate of representation as a function
heat conduction problem. It is directly linked to the of the curvilinear coordinate as shown in figure 5a. The
temporal stability: the larger the time step, the easier normalized rate of representation must be around or
the inversion. For 2-D problems. the dimensionless time larger than 0.75 for all unknowns. Values under 0.70
step equation (17) can also be used to determine the should be avoided. Moreover, the maximum value of the
feasibility of the inversion [8. 14, 161. rate of representation must be as high as possible. This
maximum value increases with the number of future
At, = @ times T (figure 5b). The adequate number of future
e2 times must be chosen such that: i) the maximum value
increases only slightly when T increases; ii) the rate of
e is an evaluation of the largest distance between the representation is as uniform as possible. Nevertheless,
sensors and the surface where the flux is searched. In
the two points before are mostly influenced by the
practice it is recommend to choose At such as: number and location of sensors: then T and the sensor
At, > lo- locations are chosen simultaneously.
(18)

22
 A guide for the use of the function specification method for 2D inverse heat conduction problems

correct,r=r2>r 1 Tmax

------ L----------
I --._:
.
*-.* ,
. Mm*

f
incomcf r = r 1

(a) (b)

Figure 5. (a) A Typical normalized rate of representation. (b) A typical history of the maximum rate of representation.

4.2. Step two: spatial stabilization the 75 % criterion. There are then two possibilities. In
parameters the first one, some unknowns can be moved or cancelled.
It means that the linear piecewise representation of the
surface flux will be coarser; the spatial resolution of
4.2.1. Number and location of sensors the surface heat flux will not be as good as the desired
one. Or it can be decided to run the inversion with this
The determination of the number of sensors and their
configuration. A poor representation of some unknowns
locations is based on the rate of representation concept does not mean that the inversion is impossible but
introduced earlier. A great deal of information can be
indicates that these unknowns cannot be accurately
obtained by studying the rate of representation for a estimated. In our case! the spatial regularization term
single sensor. It shows how wide the sensors sensitivity
will make the inversion possible but will more or less
is for this particular problem (mainly function of the
calculate the poorly represented unknowns with a linear
thermal diffusivity and time step). Then as a first choice,
approximation between well represented ones. If the true
it is safe to have a number of sensors equal to the number
surface heat flux varies linearly then this approximation
of unknowns. Based on what has been learned from the will be acceptable. Anyway it shows that the former
one sensor case, an initial set of placements is chosen
choice may be more appropriate. In any case, one should
and the rate of representation is calculated. If the 75 % remember that the design objective is to place enough
criterion is not satisfied another set should be tried. On sensors so as to recover accurately the whole surface
the other hand, if the 75 % criterion is satisfied then
heat fluxes.
this set is fine but one may want to find out whether it
is possible or not to reduce the total number of sensors.
According to this description, the determination 4.2.2. Regularization coefficient
of the sensor locations is a trial and error method. The regularization coefficient Q is the last term
This is not quite true since for each try, the rate of involved in the spatial stabilization. It allows us to have
representation curve is a great help for choosing what more unknowns, M, than sensors, N, at each time step.
changes are needed, especially for sensor locations. The The regularization terms (equation (12)), smooth the
poorly represented zone is identified and some sensors spatial variation of the surface heat flux. The smoothing
must be added near this zone or existing ones must be increases when LY increases. The optimal choice of Q: can
moved towards this part. The rate of representation of be determined from the condition number of the matrix
one unknown increases when a sensor is placed near this [A] = [S] + [S,] (equation (13)). One condition number
unknown, but accordingly the rate of representation of of the matrix [A] is defined by:
the other unknown decreases; a remote sensor gives a
low but quite uniform rate of representation for several cond[Al= 11[4 x lIP~I/
unknowns. Also as described in [23], it is not necessary
to solve the entire inverse problem to calculate the rate
of representation. Consequently, these runs are not time
consuming.
If, for technological or cost reasons, some zones
cannot be instrumented or not enough sensors can be If cond [A] > 1 then the matrix [A] is ill-conditioned:
employed, the best rate of representation may not satisfy small changes in the right hand side of equation (13)

23
 G. Blanc et al.

will give large changes in the solution vector. The curve the adequacy of this set. In particular, a large enough
of cond [A] versus a has a parabolic shape as shown in level of noise must be added to the exact data to
figure 6. When LY is too small, the system is unstable check the stability of the inversion. Only when the
and the condition number is large. If cy increases, the overall feasibility is verified can the experiment be
spatial fluctuations are constrained and the matrix built. The flowchart given in figure 7 indicates the whole
[A] becomes more and more well conditioned; the procedure. The next paragraph gives an application of
condition number decreases. For intermediate values, this methodology for a practical case.
the ~1 coefficient produces the appropriate balance
between the physical information, [S] and [D], and the
regularization information, [&I and [Da]. If cy grows,
then [Sals terms dominate [S]s terms and there is no
more a unique solution, i.e. any constant slope variation
is the solution; the matrix [A] becomes ill-posed and
the condition number increases. With exact data the Choice of the unknowns
Number and lwat~on of the mterpolatmn pomts
optimum value for cy is given by the minimum of the prmr, knowledge of the unknown surface heat flux need
cond [A] curve. Practically, due to the measurement 1
noise: it is advisable to choose a larger value in
at tmte t=5d2/a the temperature is uniform
order to obtain a more stable solution. Note that and equal to the average of mea~urentents
the mathematical literature produces many condition
numbers but, the one given by equation (20) seems to
be one of the most suitable for the IHCP.
lnttd number and locstmn of sensors
Cond[A]
4

rate of representation umfomuty and

maxmtun value mctease slightly

LdF Determmatmn of the regularizatmn cn&ic~ent

Figure 7. Guides flowchart.

a
ctopt

Figure 6. Typical condition number curve.

5. EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION
Again, the determination of the optimal value of LY
requires several computations of the condition number
versus cy but it does not require us to solve the entire 5.1. Experimental set-up
inverse problem each time. Practically, the value of (Y
depends on all the other parameters. Thus it should be
chosen last. Usually LY is of the same magnitude as the The number of papers devoted to 2D IHCP are lim-
ited [23--331 certainly because the use of these methods
largest diagonal element of the matrix [S].
with real data is still difficult. Moreover experimental
validation was seldom done [31]. T&s an experimental
set-up was built in a laboratory of Electricit de France
4.3. Summary (REME department) to demonstrate the feasibility of a
2D inversion and to verify that the proposed guide for
The methodology described above gives a step by choosing the hyper-parameters was valid.
step determination of the hyper-parameters. The set Temporal and spatial heat flux variations are created
of values determined with this procedure is among the on a solids surface and thermocouples are used to locally
best possible. At this point, the computational cost is identify the temperature variations both on this surface
small. Nevertheless, a complete numerical simulation and at some other remote locations. Since round tubes
of the inverse problem can be performed to ensure are very common in industrial application, a cylindrical

24
 A guide for the use of the function specification method for 2D inverse heat conduction problems

tube supported by two iTeflon Vs was chosen. The * three outer generatrices and three inner generatri-
inner surface is heated with infrared line lamps and ces (angles: 117, 123, 180) are instrumented with five
a reflective screen creates an azimutal variation of the thermocouples to check that 3D effects along the tube
heat flux. The outer surface is insulated with 20 cm of length are negligible at the median section.
ceramic fiber. Thermocouples were spot welded onto the Just before the experiment, several measurements
outer median surface to estimate the inner flux: and on are made to calculate the mean temperature. Then
the inner median surface so as to compare the estimated an offset is added to each thermocouple to obtain the
and measured temperatures. A sketch of the apparatus same initial temperature. This is necessary because each
is shown in figure 8. thermocouple has a different cold junction which have
different temperatures.
Ideally, we would like to have a one degree spatial
resolution for the inner surface heat flux. Thus 360
fiber insulation interpolation points equally spaced are used to represent
the flux with the linear piecewise function. For practical
and economic reasons, only 40 sensors can be placed on
the outer surface. Our objective is to determine the best
sensor locations and all the other parameters necessary
for the inversion. Let us use the step by step procedure.

5.2. Temporal stabilization parameters

i) The initial temperature is uniform and known.
Thus, it is not necessary to use equation (16) and the
inversion starts at time zero.
ii) Thermocouples can only be placed on the outer
surface (non-intrusive measurements) and the maximum
distance in equation (17) is equal to the tube thickness.
A dimensionless time step equal to lo- leads to a 0.32 s
time step. A 0.5 s time step was chosen.
iii) Since all sensors must be placed on the outer
Figure 8. Sketch of the apparatus.
surface, the rate of representation shape is the same for
any sensor. Thus the rate of representation for all the
The tubes characteristics are: length = 0.7 m, sensors will simply be the sum of the same curve shifted
diameter = 0.7 rn: thickness = 0.02 m, conductiv- in space. For this particular problem, the calculation of
ity = 54.0 W.m-l.K-l, volumetric heat capacity the rate of representation for a single sensor is sufficient
= 375.4 kJ.mp3,Kp1. For the range of temperatures to determine the number of future times. Figure 9
obtained during the heating, the thermal property vari- shows, for different future times, the normalized rate of
ations are less than 1 %. Then, they are assumed to be representation for a single sensor placed at B = 0. The
constant and the problem is linear. graph in the upper right corner indicates the variation
of the maximum rate of representation value with r.
The heating process characteristics are After 3 s the width of the rate of representation and
reflective screen: a polished Inox plate of 2 mm its maximum value increase slowly. Then, a number of
thickness; future time steps equal to eight is chosen. It corresponds
infrared line lamp (Philips) type 13215X: number: to 4 s, since the time step is equal to 0.5 s.
6 (unit power = 3 kW, alimentation voltage = 380 V
[AC current, 50 Hz], heating length = 0.7 m, maximum
length = 0.798 m. holder: stelite base type 13215X). 5.3. Spatial stabilization parameters
sensors: First of all, the rate of representation is calculated
* outer section: 40 thermocouples, type K, wire for 360 sensors placed in front of the 360 unknowns. The
diameter: 0.1 mm, length: 5 m; normalized rate is uniform and equal to one. Then, the
* inner section: 10 thermocouples, type K, wire rate of representation is calculated when one sensor
diameter: 0.1 mm, length: 5 m; over two is removed, then two sensors over three,
etc. The normalized rate of representation decreases
* thermocouple amplifiers are CVP400 with a time between two consecutive sensors and accordingly the
response of 0.26 ms; distance between each sensors increases. The rate of
* fast scanner (HP 3852A) starts a scan sequence representation is under the 75 % criterion when the
each 0.1s i.e. the measurement time step is 0.1 s, the maximum angle between two consecutive sensors is
scrutinize speed is 0.25 /.Ls; larger than 3. It means that 120 sensors are necessary

25
 c. Blanc et al.

2000 1 -,

1so+ I

160 a '3
-t=o.zs
7 140.
-'i=4s
5 120 -.
z 8
0 100 -

800~ I
mot
0.2
400 1
I '.. I
1 200+
-w
0 --- --~ ------+- '- ----f7---+ -5,',-.--+--,
-10 0
Awk WeI -14 -13,5 -13 -12.5 -12 -11,5 -11 -10.5 -10 -9,5 -9

Figure 9. Normalized rate of representation for a single

a [w
sensor placed at 19 = 0. Figure 11. Condition number as a function of the regulariza-
tion coefficient.

to determine accurately the irmer heat flux with a

spatial resolution of 1.
5.4. Summary
Since only 40 sensors are available, there are
two possible options: either decrease the number of The temporal stabilization parameters were as
unknowns, i.e. decrease the spatial resolution, or place follows:
all of the 40 sensors between 93 and 210 with a 3 angle initial conditions: average of the initial tempera-
between each. In the latter case, a part of the inner ture measurements; time step = 0.5 s; number of future
surface can be estimated with a 1 spatial resolution. temperatures = 8.
but on the other hand the heat flux cannot be estimated spatial stabilization parameters: number of inter-
on the remaining part. This option was preferred polation points: 360, one unknown per degree, but only
for our experimental validation and the corresponding parameters between 93 and 210 can be estimated; reg-
normalized rate of representation is shown in figure 10. ularization coefficient = 10-l; number of sensors = 40;
Note that it is slightly under 0.75. location of sensors: each 3 degrees between 93 and 210.
The hyper parameters listed above were chosen
The regularization coefficient is chosen from the
to obtain a good balance between the bias and the
condition number curve shown on figure 11. Notice
sensitivity to error measurements. but the optimum
that it is a logarithmic scale. A value of 10P1a, which is
the upper limit before the abrupt increase of the curve balance depends on the user need. They must then
be confirmed by carrying out a complete numerical
was chosen.
simulation of the inversion with noisy data. The test
case corresponds to a spatial variation of the flux equal
to zero before 40 s and equal to the exact curve after this
time (figure 12). For the first test the spatial fluctuations
were too large and the regularization coefficient was
1, -~~
increased to lo-. Then, the spatial variations obtained
0,9
were smooth enough for our needs (figure 12). If o is
0.8 increased even more, the results are smoother but t,he
0.7 abrupt change: around 120) is not estimated as well.
The other insight in figure 12 is that the zone. just
0,6t I before 210. is not well reconstructed because of the
z 03 _
poor estimation of the flux after 210, where the rate of
0.4 - I representation is zero. All the other hyper-parameters
0.3 b
were unchanged.
0.2 a
I
0, -
o,o *..-. i L --,c +. ~_~ ~~,~ +-, 5.5. Experimental results
0 30 80 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 330 360
Awk Ideal
The goal of the experimental validation is to re-
Figure 10. Normalized rate of representation for 40 sensors construct, with the 40 outer thermocouples, the inner
equally spaced between 93 and 2 10. spatial discontinuity due to the reflective screen and

26
 A guide for the use of the function specification method for 2D inverse heat conduction problems

moo I

15000 t

E
g looa --

ii
5000.-

Figure 12. Comparison at t = 100 s of exact flux and

estimated flux with simulated noisy data. Figure 14. Inner surface temperature measurements.

the flux histories. The two edges of the reflective screen

are at 120 and 240. The infrared lamps alimentation
voltage is zero for t < 40 s! 380 V for 40 s < t < 180 s,
then zero thereafter.
Many graphs have been plotted to give a good
overview of the inversion. Here emphasis is on the 93-
210 zone since according to the rate of representation,
estimation outside this zone is impossible.
The spatial and temporal variations of the temper-
atures measured on the outer and inner surfaces are
shown in figures 13 and 14. The comparison between
these two figures illustrates the lagging and damping
effect of heat diffusion between the inner and outer
surfaces.
The inner surface estimated temperatures are shown
in figure 15. The overall shape is well reconstructed in Figure 15. Estimation of the inner surface temperatures from
comparison with the measurements in figure 14. For outer surface measurements.
an easier comparison, the relative differences in percent
between the estimated and measured temperatures are changes are smoothed: this is the bias. The zones where
given in figure 16. The stabilization, introduced by the spatial and temporal changes are the largest, correspond
use of future temperatures and regularization, acts as to the larger differences: close to 6 % when the heating
a low pass filter. Then the high frequencies and abrupt starts (t = 40 s) or stops (t = 200 s) and around 120
due to the screen location. This is illustrated in figures
17 and 18. Figure 17 shows the spatial variations at two
particular times and figure 18 shows the time variations
of a particular point. Before and after the heating,
the error is close to zero: the bias is low because the
a priori information added with future temperatures
(the flux is constant during the future time steps) and
with the regularization (the flux is constant over the
circumference) is true.

Figure 19 shows the spatial variation of the esti-

mated flux on the inner surface at t = 100 s. For
the well represented zone the estimated flux variations
are coherent with the created one. Particularity, the
spatial discontinuity due to the reflective screen is re-
constructed. The estimation outside of this zone is
very poor as predicted. A zoom on the 93.-210 zone
is given in figure 20. The waves are due to the non-
Figure 13. Outer surface temperature measurements. uniformity of the irradiation and not to the inversion

27
 C. Blanc et al.

10 L
0 40 80 120 160 200 240
TimeIs]

Figure 18. Comparison of measured and estimated tempera-

ture histories at a particular point of the tube inner surface
Figure 16. Relative difference on the inner surface between (0 = 180).
estimated and measured temperatures.

60-

4owo

E 30000
g
g 20000
LL
10000

0 c
6o 90 120 150 160 210 240 270 300 330 360
.,oooo Or
i
Awla Id%!1
93 102 111 120 129 136 147 156 165 174 163 192 201 210
mk Kw Figure 19. Inner surface flux estimated at time t = 100.
Figure 17. Comparison at two particular times of the measu-
red and estimated inner surface temperatures.

6. CONCLUSIONS

instability. As a matter of fact, the results of the This paper provides a step by step guide to facilitate
simulation inversion (figure 12), performed with the the use of the function specification method for 2D
same temporal and spatial stabilization parameters and inverse heat conduction problems. This guide was
with a noise level comparable to that of the experimental conceived during the experimental validation of the
one (standard deviation of 0.043), show that the spatial rate of representation notion. The measurements were
fluctuations due to the noise are much smaller. done on an apparatus especially designed for this study.
Figure 21 shows the flux variations at 0 = 180. The results show that the estimation, from remote
The abrupt changes at times where the infrared lamps temperature measurements, of surface temperature and
flux which vary in both time and space is possible;
are turned on and off are well identified. In this
case, the high frequency oscillations correspond to provided all the stabilization parameters are properly
the measurement noise amplification. The number of chosen.
future times r could be increased to 10 to remove these The most important parameters for the function
oscillations. specification method are: the time step, the number of
future times, the number and location of the sensors
Other experiments with various temporal and spatial and the regularization coefficient. The step by step
variations were done and gave good results. The largest guide is a tool that helps to chose these hyper-
relative difference between the measured and estimated
parameters. Furthermore, each of the steps does not,
temperature was around 10 % and was obtained for a require us to solve the entire inverse problem. thus it is
high temporal frequency (0.025 Hz) and a narrow heat computationally efficient compared to the classic trial
flux peak due to a single infrared lamp located near the and error method.
surface.

28
 A guide for the use of the function specification method for 2D inverse heat conduction problems

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I Mass Tran. 34 (1 1) (1991) 291 1-2919.
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[61 Raynaud M., Bransier J., A new finite difference
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Time[s]
[lo] Beck J.V., Blackwell B., Haji-Sheikh A., Comparison
Figure 21. Temporal variations of the estimated inner surface of some inverse heat conduction methods using
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30