Abstract
An inverse problem associated with the mass transport of a material concentration down a pipe where the flowing non-Newtonian medium has a two-dimensional velocity profile is examined. 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. This inverse problem is in general ill-posed and mollification is used to obtain a well conditioned problem.