Fluid velocity profile reconstruction for non-Newtonian shear dispersive flow (Q5953535)

Summary: We examine an inverse problem associated with mass transport of a material concentration down a pipe where the flowing non-Newtonian medium has a two-dimensional velocity profile. The problem of determining the two-dimensional fluid velocity profile from temporally varying cross-sectional average concentration measurements at upstream and downstream locations is considered. The special case of a known input upstream concentration with a time zero step, and a strictly decreasing velocity profile is shown to be a well-posed problem. We also show that this inverse problem is in general ill-posed, and use a mollification to obtain a well-conditioned problem.