Inverse radiation problem of source term in three-dimensional complicated geometric semitransparent media

A method is presented to identify the three-dimensional source term distrib ution in complicated geometric systems of known radiative properties from t he knowledge of the radiative intensities exiting the boundaries. The inver se radiation problem is formulated as an optimization problem, and solved b y the conjugate gradient method that minimizes the errors between the exit radiative intensities calculated and the experimental measurements. The ana lysis consists of the direct problem, the gradient equation, and the sensit ivity problem. In this approach, the discrete ordinates method is employed to solve the direct and the sensitivity problems in general body-fitted coo rdinates. The effects of the measurement errors on the accuracy of the inve rse analysis are investigated. The study shows that the three-dimensional s ource term distribution in complicated geometric systems can be estimated a ccurately, even with noisy data. (C) 2001 Editions scientifiques et medical es Elsevier SAS.