Direct and inverse one-phase Stefan problem solved by the variational iteration method

In this paper, solutions of one-phase direct and inverse Stefan problems are presented. The direct problem consists in a calculation of temperature distribution and of a function which describes the position of the moving interface, whilst the inverse problem consists in a calculation of temperature distribution as well as in the reconstruction of the function which describes the temperature distribution on the boundary, when the position of the moving interface is known. The proposed solution is based on the variational iteration method, after the application of which we obtain the solution in the form of continuous functions. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.