Physical characteristics of a lava flow determined from thermal measurements at the lava’s surface

Abstract

We consider the problem about determination of characteristics of a lava flow from the physical parameters measured on its surface. The problem is formulated as an inverse boundary problem for the model simulating the dynamics of a viscous heat-conducting incompressible inhomogeneous fluid, where, on the basis of additional data at one part of the model boundary, the missing conditions at another part of the boundary have to be determined, and then the characteristics of fluid in the entire model domain have to be reconstructed. The considered problem is ill-posed. We develop a numerical approach to the solution of the problem in the case of a steady-state flow. Assuming that the temperature and the heat flow are known at the upper surface of the lava, we determine the flow characteristics inside the lava. We compute model examples and show that the lava temperature and flow velocity can be determined with a high precision when the initial data are smooth or slightly noisy.