Solution of an inverse problem in the Hankel space – Infrared thermography applied to estimation of a transient cooling flux

In this paper, we consider a two-dimensional inverse heat conduction problem (IHCP) in a jet cooling experiment. A nickel disk is heated by an induction device up to 600 °C before being cooled by a water jet impinging on its front side and, at the same time, the temperature on the rear side is measured by a high resolution infrared thermography. The transient heat flux at the cooled face is determined from the IR measurements. To achieve this goal, an inverse heat conduction problem (IHCP) is formulated using an analytical solution of the direct problem expressed in the Hankel space. Then, results of simulated experiments are given in order to illustrate the performance of this method but also its limitations. Finally, an example of heat flux estimation from real temperature measurements is made.

► An analytical solution of the heat equation is obtained in the Hankel–Laplace spaces.
► An inverse method is implemented using temperatures coming from infrared thermography as input data.
► The unknown 2D transient heat flux can be recovered with a high accuracy using a low CPU.