An inverse radiation problem of estimating heat-transfer coefficient in participating media

In the radiant cooler, where the hot gas from the pulverized coal gasifier or combustor is cooled to generate steam, the wall heat-transfer coefficient varies due to ash deposition. In the present work, we investigate an inverse radiation problem of estimating the heat-transfer coefficient from temperature measurement in the radiant cooler. The inverse radiation problem is solved through the minimization of a performance function, which is expressed by the sum of square residuals between calculated and observed temperature, utilizing the conjugate gradient method. The gradient of the performance function is evaluated by means of the improved adjoint variable method, which resolves the difficulty associated with the singularity of the adjoint equation through its inherent regularization property. The effects of the number of measurement points and measurement noise on the accuracy of estimation are also investigated.