An experimental identification of line heat sources in a diffusive system using the boundary element method

This paper deals with an inverse problem which consists of the experimental identification of line heat source strength in an homogeneous solid using temperature measurements. An inverse formulation using the boundary element method, is used to identify the strength of line heat sources. In the case of multiple sources identification the location is assumed to be known but, in the case of a single source, an iterative algorithm for the location identification is proposed. The experiment consists of the identification of the power dissipated by Joule effect in one or two thin wires placed in a long square section cement bar. The measurements necessary to solve the inverse problem are provided by thermocouples for the internal temperatures and by infrared thermography for the superficial temperatures. A time regularization procedure associated to future time steps is used to correctly solve the ill-posed problem.