Mathematical Problems in Engineering 
Volume 8 (2002), Issue 2, Pages 111-122
doi:10.1080/10241230212906

Determination of an unknown parameter in a semi-linear parabolic equation

Mehdi Dehghan

Department of Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Amirkabir University of Technology, No. 424, Hafez Avenue, Tehran, Iran

Received 1 December 2001

Abstract

Some finite difference approximations are developed for an inverse problem of determining an unknown parameter p(t) which is a coefficient of the solution u in a semi-linear parabolic partial differential equation subject to a boundary integral overspecification. The accuracy and efficiency of the procedures are discussed. Some computational results using the newly proposed numerical techniques are presented. CPU times needed for this problem are reported.