Abstract
A sensitivity analysis based on adjoint formulation is proposed to generally evaluate the thermal boundary condition effects on convection heat transfer characteristics. The sensitivity function obtained from the adjoint computation enables us to predict the change of heat transfer characteristics for arbitrary thermal boundary condition. As a result, we can obtain the optimal thermal boundary conditions to control heat transfer characteristics; such as total heat transfer rate or a temperature at a specific location. An illustrative example is presented for mixed convection heat transfer in a square cavity with an inlet and an outlet.
