Inverse Analysis for Estimating Temperature-Dependent Thermal Properties in Orthotropic Media using Differential Evolution

Resumo

Inverse heat conduction analysis plays an important role in estimating material properties, especially in complex thermal systems where direct measurement is challenging. In this study, the differential evolution algorithm is employed to minimize the objective function, which is defined as the ordinary least squares error of the real values and the predicted ones, of the inverse problem in a two-dimensional orthotropic medium. Thus, the inverse problem consists in estimating the two components of the thermal conductivity tensor and the heat capacity, both of which are assumed to be temperature-dependent functions. The direct problem governed by the transient nonlinear heat conduction model is numerically solved by a developed code based on the FEM through the implicit Euler scheme and the Picard iteration method. The solution of the inverse problem, both with and without noise in the simulated data, demonstrates that accurate outcomes are achieved, indicating a robust and simple methodology for estimating the thermophysical parameters.