Determination of surface location between two sub-domains using the temperature distribution on the external surface

Abstract

In the paper two sub-domains which are in thermal contact are considered. The temperature field in these domains is described by the system of two Laplace equations supplemented by the boundary conditions. The position of surface between sub-domains is unknown. Additional information necessary to solve the identification problem results from a knowledge of external surface temperature distribution. The direct problem is solved using the boundary element method. To solve the inverse problem formulated the gradient method is applied. In the final part of the paper the results of computations are shown. The algorithm proposed here can be used, among others, in the medical practice (e.g. in burns therapy).