Experimental-Theoretical Analysis of a Transient Heat Conduction Setup via Infrared Thermography and Unified Integral Transforms

Abstract

The present work is aimed at demonstrating and covalidating the experimental and theoretical analysis via infrared thermography and unified integral transforms, respectively, of a partially heated sandwiched plate configuration, recently proposed and employed for space variable thermophysical property identification in heterogeneous media. The plates are heated at their contact with an electrical resistance of known dissipative power, exchanging heat by natural convection and radiation at the external faces. Infrared camera measurements are taken at the external face of one of the plates. Then, a novel open source computational code called UNIT (UNified Integral Transforms), which provides a development platform for finding solutions of partial differential equations by means of integral transforms, is employed in the comparative theoretical analysis. In the corresponding mathematical model, the equation dissipation term suffers an abrupt variation due to the partially applied heat flux (up to half of the plate’s height), with the resulting steep heat transfer coefficient at the external surface. The results obtained with the UNIT code show a reasonably good agreement with the experimental data, but also indicate the need for inverse analysis in the proper identification of the abrupt variations in the heat transfer coefficient and of the time lag in the interface heat flux behavior. Thus, a recently developed inverse problem analysis combining infrared thermography, integral transforms and Bayesian inference is here illustrated in simultaneously estimating the thermophysical properties, the applied heat flux, and the heat transfer coefficient functional behaviors. Finally, employing the estimated parameters, an excellent agreement is achieved between experimental and theoretical results.
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