Thermal Monitoring for Pool Boiling Experiment Using Filter-Based Solution of Inverse Heat Conduction Problems

This investigation devises and demonstrates a new methodology based on inverse heat conduction (IHC) to determine the surface heat flux during transient pool boiling. The experimental setup is a copper block equipped with cartridge heaters at its base which supply controlled heat to the top surface where boiling occurs. Four T-Type stainless steel-sheathed thermocouples are embedded at different depths from the surface to facilitate computation of the surface heat flux. The proposed method uses Tikhonov regularization technique as the solution of IHC problem in a one-dimensional domain with temperature-dependent material properties. The solution is written in the filter coefficients form to facilitate near real-time surface heat flux estimation. The filter coefficient technique has been proved to be fast and accurate in solving non-linear inverse heat transfer problems. A lumped capacitance or RC model of the thermocouple tip will be used to account for temperature sensor dynamics and provide the sensitivity coefficients needed for more accurate IHC calculation. The proposed approach offers a fast and accurate technique for surface heat flux estimation in pool boiling experiment, providing critical insights into the boiling dynamics and heat removal performance of the system. The proposed approach can support future developments in two-phase cooling for various applications.