Numerical estimation of convective heat transfer coefficient through linearization

In this work, methods for estimating the local convective heat transfer coefficient in coiled tubes are proposed and assessed. The methods include truncated generalized singular value decomposition, Tikhonov regularization, and a novel filtering technique which mitigates noise propagation by truncating the frequency content of differentiation matrix operators. Numerical results on synthetic and experimental data are reported to illustrate the effectiveness of the methods. Synthetic data resemble well experimental data often encountered in technical applications and may be useful in the assessment of numerical methods and in the design of coiled tube heat exchangers. The success of the methods is supported by both an efficient solver for the forward problem based on a highly accurate pseudospectral method and a proper selection of regularization parameters.