A direct integration approach for the estimation of time-dependent boundary heat flux

In a one-dimensional heat conduction domain with heated and insulated walls, an integral approach is proposed to estimate time-dependent boundary heat flux without internal measurements. It is assumed that the expression of the heat flux is not known a priori. Hence, the present inverse heat conduction problem is classified as a function estimation problem. The spatial temperature distribution is approximated as a third-order polynomial of position, whose four coefficients are determined from the heat fluxes and the temperatures at both ends at each measurement. After integrating the heat conduction equation over spatial and time domain, respectively, a simple and non-iterative recursive equation to estimate the time-dependent boundary heat flux is derived. Several examples are introduced to show the effectiveness of the present approach.