Incremental Identification of Transport Models in Falling Films

Abstract:
In this paper, an incremental identification method is presented to systematically determine an effective transport coefficient model in the flat-film model of a falling film from high resolution measurements. While the convective velocity in the three-dimensional, transient convection-diffusion equation is known, the diffusion term is characterised by an unknown, transport coefficient to account for the neglected backmixing in the flat-film model. To efficiently treat the nonlinear and ill-posed inverse problem of transport coefficient model identification, the problem is decomposed into a sequence of easier to handle subproblems. This strategy aims at the determination of the best-performing transport coefficient model in a transparent decision-making process, in particular, in those cases where a-priori knowledge on the model structure is lacking. Yet, to result in an accurate model, a careful design of the experimental conditions has to be carried out. In this paper, an optimally designed falling film experiment for a three-dimensional flat-film model is designed for the first time to support the identification of a high precision transport coefficient model.

Please use the Online Form to request an electronic copy