ABSTRACT
Experimental observations of temperature or heat žux pro¢les may not be available at the physical location where they are needed. Radiative property distributions in a participating medium must often be obtained from remote measurements. These situations belong to the mathematical class known as inverse problems. The solution of these problems is dif¢cult, because the governing equations tend to be mathematically ill posed, and predicting conditions on the remote boundary can result in multiple solutions, physically unrealistic solutions, or solutions that oscillate in space and time. Various methods may be applied for overcoming the ill-posed nature of the governing equations. For problems dominated by conduction, there are texts and monographs available that demonstrate many of these methods (Tikhonov 1963, Alifanov 1994, Alifanov et al. 1995, Beck et al. 1995, Özişik and Orlande 2000). Phillips (1962) and Tikhonov are often credited with developing the ¢rst systematic treatment for these types of inverse conduction problems.
