Shape identification for inverse geometry heat conduction problems by FEM without iteration

The boundary geometry shape is identified by the finite element method (FEM) without iteration and mesh reconstruction for two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) inverse heat conduction problems. First, the direct heat conduction problem with the exact domain is solved by the FEM and the temperatures of measurement points are obtained. Then, by introducing a virtual boundary, a virtual domain is formed. By minimizing the difference between the temperatures of measurement points in the exact domain and those in the virtual domain, the temperatures of the points on the virtual boundary are calculated based on the least square error method and the Tikhonov regularization. Finally, the objective geometry shape can be estimated by the method of searching the isothermal curve or isothermal surface for 2-D or 3-D problems, respectively. In the process, no iterative calculation is needed. The proposed method has a tremendous advantage in reducing the computational time for the inverse geometry problems. Numerical examples are presented to test the validity of the proposed approach. Meanwhile, the influences of measurement noise, virtual boundary, measurement point number, and measurement point position on the boundary geometry prediction are also investigated in the examples. The solutions show that the method is accurate and efficient to identify the unknown boundary geometry configurations for 2-D and 3-D heat conduction problems.