Numerical solution of the Cauchy problem for steady-state heat transfer in two-dimensional functionally graded materials

The application of the method of fundamental solutions to the Cauchy problem for steady-state heat conduction in two-dimensional functionally graded materials (FGMs) is investigated. The resulting system of linear algebraic equations is ill-conditioned and, therefore, regularization is required in order to solve this system of equations in a stable manner. This is achieved by employing the zeroth-order Tikhonov functional, while the choice of the regularization parameter is based on the L-curve method. Numerical results are presented for both smooth and piecewise smooth geometries. The convergence and the stability of the method with respect to increasing the number of source points and the distance between the source points and the boundary of the solution domain, and decreasing the amount of noise added into the input data, respectively, are analysed. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.