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This paper aims to discuss inverse problems that arise in a variety of practical thermal processes and systems. It presents some of the approaches that may be used to obtain results that lie within a small region of uncertainty. Therefore, the non-uniqueness of the solution is reduced so that the final design and boundary conditions may be determined. Optimization methods that may be used to reduce the uncertainty and to select locations for experimental data and for minimizing the error are presented. A few examples of thermal systems are given to illustrate the applicability of these methods and the challenges that must be addressed in solving inverse problems.

In most analytical and numerical solutions, the basic equations that describe the process, as well as the relevant and appropriate boundary conditions, are known. The interest lies in obtaining a unique solution that satisfies the equations and boundary conditions. This may be termed as a direct or forward solution. However, there are many problems, particularly in practical systems, where the desired result is known but the conditions needed for achieving it are not known. These are generally known as inverse problems. In manufacturing, for instance, the temperature variation to which a component must be subjected to obtain desired characteristics is prescribed, but the means to achieve this variation are not known. An example of this circumstance is the annealing, tempering or hardening of steel. In such cases, the boundary and initial conditions are not known and must be determined by solving the inverse problem to obtain the desired temperature variation in the component. The solutions, thus, obtained are generally not unique. This is a review paper, which discusses inverse problems that arise in a variety of practical thermal processes and systems. It presents some of the approaches or strategies that may be used to obtain results that lie within a small region of uncertainty. It is important to realize that the solution is not unique, and this non-uniqueness must be reduced so that the final design and boundary conditions may be determined with acceptable accuracy and repeatability. Optimization techniques are often used for minimizing the error. This review presents several methods that may be applied to reduce the uncertainty and to select locations for experimental data for the best results. A few examples of thermal systems are given to illustrate the applicability of these methods and the challenges that must be addressed in solving inverse problems. By considering a variety of systems, the paper also shows the importance of solving inverse problems to obtain results that may be used to model and design thermal processes and systems.

The solution of inverse problems, which frequently arise in thermal processes, is discussed. Different strategies to obtain the conditions that lead to the desired result are given. The goal of these approaches is to reduce uncertainty and obtain essentially unique solutions for different circumstances. The error of the method can be checked against known conditions to see if it is acceptable for the given problem. Several examples are given to illustrate the use of these methods.

The basic strategies presented here for solving inverse problems that arise in thermal processes and systems, as well as the optimization techniques used to reduce the domain of uncertainty, are fairly original. They are used for certain challenging problems that have not been considered in detail earlier. Several methods are outlined for considering different types of problems.

Magnetic material properties of an electromagnetic device (EMD) can be recovered by solving a coupled experimental numerical inverse problem. In order to ensure the highest possible accuracy of the inverse problem solution, all physics of the EMD need to be perfectly modeled using a complex numerical model. However, these fine models demand a high computational time. Alternatively, less accurate coarse models can be used with a demerit of the high expected recovery errors. The purpose of this paper is to present an efficient methodology to reduce the effect of stochastic modeling errors in the inverse problem solution.

The recovery error in the electromagnetic inverse problem solution is reduced using the Bayesian approximation error approach coupled with an adaptive Kriging-based model. The accuracy of the forward model is assessed and adapted a priori using the cross-validation technique.

The adaptive Kriging-based model seems to be an efficient technique for modeling EMDs used in inverse problems. Moreover, using the proposed methodology, the recovery error in the electromagnetic inverse problem solution is largely reduced in a relatively small computational time and memory storage.

The proposed methodology is capable of not only improving the accuracy of the inverse problem solution, but also reducing the computational time as well as the memory storage. Furthermore, to the best of the authors knowledge, it is the first time to combine the adaptive Kriging-based model with the Bayesian approximation error approach for the stochastic modeling error reduction.

This paper seeks to develop an approach for the unsteady inverse problem of two‐dimensional oscillating airfoils based on the finite difference method (FDM) solution of the transient Euler equations.

The solution strategies are determined according to the mathematical model for the inverse‐problem of oscillating airfoils. Then the unsteady nonreflecting far field boundary condition and the permeable wall boundary condition are employed to treat the boundary conditions. The applications are carried out for the modification of an oscillating airfoil according to the design targets of the unsteady pressure distribution in an oscillating period.

The results show that the pressure distributions over the new airfoils coincide with the design objects indicating that the mathematical model and solution strategy developed in this paper is rational and reliable.

This method is limited to frictionless flow.

The paper provides a new FDM solution of unsteady inverse problem for oscillating airfoils, which can be extended to treat the multipoint problem of airfoil design.

The main purpose of this study, reflecting mainly the content of the authors’ plenary lecture, is to make a brief overview of several approaches developed by the author and his colleagues to the solution to ill-posed inverse heat transfer problems (IHTPs) with their possible extension to a wider class of inverse problems of mathematical physics and, most importantly, to show the wide possibilities of this methodology by examples of aerospace applications. In this regard, this study can be seen as a continuation of those applications that were discussed in the lecture.

The application of the inverse method was pre-tested with experimental investigations on a special test equipment in laboratory conditions. In these studies, the author used the solution to the nonlinear inverse problem in the conjugate (conductive and convective) statement. The corresponding iterative algorithm has been developed and tested by a numerical and experimental way.

It can be stated that the theory and methodology of solving IHTPs combined with experimental simulation of thermal conditions is an effective tool for various fundamental and applied research and development in the field of heat and mass transfer.

With the help of the developed methods of inverse problems, the investigation was conducted for a porous cooling with a gaseous coolant for heat protection of the re-entry vehicle in the natural environment of hypersonic flight. Moreover, the analysis showed that the inverse methods can make a useful contribution to the study of heat transfer at the surface of a solid body under the influence of the hypersonic heterogeneous (dusty) gas stream and in many other aerospace applications.

This paper aims to present the mathematical formulations of a magnetic inverse problem for the electric arc current density reconstruction in a simplified arc chamber of a low-voltage circuit breaker.

Considering that electric arc current density is a zero divergence vector field, the inverse problem can be solved in Whitney space W² in terms of electric current density J with the zero divergence condition as a constraint or can be solved in Whitney space W¹ in terms of electric vector potential T where the zero divergence condition naturally holds. Moreover, the tree gauging condition is applied to ensure a unique solution when solving for the vector potential in space W¹. Tikhonov regularization is used to treat the ill-posedness of the inverse problem complemented with L-curve method for the selection of regularization parameters. A common mode approach is proposed, which solves for the reduced electric vector potential representing the internal current loops instead of solving for the total electric vector potential. The proposed inversion approaches are numerically tested starting from simulated magnetic field values.

With the common mode approach, the reconstruction of current density is significantly improved for both formulations using face elements in space W² and using edge elements in space W¹. When solving the inverse problem in space W¹, the choice of the regularization operator has a key role to obtain a good reconstruction, where the discrete curl operator is a good option. The standard Tikhonov regularization obtains a good reconstruction with J-formulation, but fails in the case of T-formulation. The use of edge elements requires a tree-cotree gauging to ensure the uniqueness of T. Moreover, additional efforts have to be taken to find an optimal regularization operator and an optimal tree when using edge elements. In conclusion, the J-formulation is to be preferred.

The proposed approaches are able to reconstruct the three-dimensional electric arc current density from its magnetic field in a non-intrusive manner. The formulations enable us to incorporate a priori knowledge of the unknown current density into the solution of the inverse problem, including the zero divergence condition and the boundary conditions. A common mode approach is proposed, which can significantly improve the current density reconstruction.

The application of statistical inversion theory provides a powerful approach for solving estimation problems including the ability for uncertainty quantification (UQ) by means of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods and Monte Carlo integration. This paper aims to analyze the application of a state reduction technique within different MCMC techniques to improve the computational efficiency and the tuning process of these algorithms.

A reduced state representation is constructed from a general prior distribution. For sampling the Metropolis Hastings (MH) Algorithm and the Gibbs sampler are used. Efficient proposal generation techniques and techniques for conditional sampling are proposed and evaluated for an exemplary inverse problem.

For the MH-algorithm, high acceptance rates can be obtained with a simple proposal kernel. For the Gibbs sampler, an efficient technique for conditional sampling was found. The state reduction scheme stabilizes the ill-posed inverse problem, allowing a solution without a dedicated prior distribution. The state reduction is suitable to represent general material distributions.

The state reduction scheme and the MCMC techniques can be applied in different imaging problems. The stabilizing nature of the state reduction improves the solution of ill-posed problems. The tuning of the MCMC methods is simplified.

The paper presents a method to improve the solution process of inverse problems within the Bayesian framework. The stabilization of the inverse problem due to the state reduction improves the solution. The approach simplifies the tuning of MCMC methods.

We compare a recently proposed generalized eigensystem approach and a new modified generalized eigensystem approach to more widely used truncated singular value decomposition and zero‐order Tikhonov regularization for solving multidimensional elliptic inverse problems. As a test case, we use a finite element representation of a homogeneous eccentric spheres model of the inverse problem of electrocardiography. Special attention is paid to numerical issues of accuracy, convergence, and robustness. While the new generalized eigensystem methods are substantially more demanding computationally, they exhibit improved accuracy and convergence compared with widely used methods and offer substantially better robustness.

This study aims to investigate the possible use of a deep neural network (DNN) as an inverse solver.

Different models based on DNNs are designed and proposed for the resolution of inverse electromagnetic problems either as fast solvers for the direct problem or as straightforward inverse problem solvers, with reference to the TEAM 25 benchmark problem for the sake of exemplification.

Using DNNs as straightforward inverse problem solvers has relevant advantages in terms of promptness but requires a careful treatment of the underlying problem ill-posedness.

This work is one of the first attempts to exploit DNNs for inverse problem resolution in low-frequency electromagnetism. Results on the TEAM 25 test problem show the potential effectiveness of the approach but also highlight the need for a careful choice of the training data set.

This paper aims to discuss the inverse problems that arise in various practical heat transfer processes. The purpose of this paper is to provide an identification method for predicting the internal boundary conditions for thermal analysis of mechanical structure. A few examples of heat transfer systems are given to illustrate the applicability of the method and the challenges that must be addressed in solving the inverse problem.

In this paper, the thermal network method and the finite difference method are used to model the two-dimensional heat conduction inverse problem of the tube structure, and the heat balance equation is arranged into an explicit form for heat load prediction. To solve the matrix ill-conditioned problem in the process of solving the inverse problem, a Tikhonov regularization parameter selection method based on the inverse computation-contrast-adjustment-approach was proposed.

The applicability of the proposed method is illustrated by numerical examples for different dynamically varying heat source functions. It is proved that the method can predict dynamic heat source with different complexity.

The modeling calculation method described in this paper can be used to predict the boundary conditions for the inner wall of the heat transfer tube, where the temperature sensor cannot be placed.

This paper presents a general method for the direct prediction of heat sources or boundary conditions in mechanical structure. It can directly obtain the time-varying heat flux load and thtemperature field of the machine structure.

The study of heat transfer mechanisms is an area of great interest because of various applications that can be developed. Mathematically, these phenomena are usually represented by partial differential equations associated with initial and boundary conditions. In general, the resolution of these problems requires using numerical techniques through discretization of boundary and internal points of the domain considered, implying a high computational cost. As an alternative to reducing computational costs, various approaches based on meshless (or meshfree) methods have been evaluated in the literature. In this contribution, the purpose of this paper is to formulate and solve direct and inverse problems applied to Laplace’s equation (steady state and bi-dimensional) considering different geometries and regularization techniques. For this purpose, the method of fundamental solutions is associated to Tikhonov regularization or the singular value decomposition method for solving the direct problem and the differential Evolution algorithm is considered as an optimization tool for solving the inverse problem. From the obtained results, it was observed that using a regularization technique is very important for obtaining a reliable solution. Concerning the inverse problem, it was concluded that the results obtained by the proposed methodology were considered satisfactory, as even with different levels of noise, good estimates for design variables in proposed inverse problems were obtained.

In this contribution, the method of fundamental solution is used to solve inverse problems considering the Laplace equation.

In general, the proposed methodology was able to solve inverse problems considering different geometries.

The association between the differential evolution algorithm and the method of fundamental solutions is the major contribution.