SINOPSIS

Hot planar aluminium targets were cooled by water sprays, and mid-plane temperature - time histories were recorded and analyzed by two alternative methods in order to obtain the boiling curve linking wall heat flux and wall temperature. In the first approach, the raw signal was filtered and an inverse heat conduction problem was solved. In the second approach, the boiling curve was parameterized by six shape parameters; for each set of parameters, a direct thermal transient problem was solved using the corresponding curve as a convective boundary condition, thus obtaining a tentative mid-plane temperature - time history to be compared with the experimental one. A minimum problem was then solved by using different algorithms to find optimum shape parameters. The relative merits of the two approaches are discussed.