**Abstract**

This chapter is intended to provide a numerical algorithm involving the combined use of the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm and the Galerkin finite element method for estimating the diffusion coefficient in an inverse heat conduction problem (IHCP). In the present study, the functional form of the diffusion coefficient is an unknown priori. The unknown diffusion coefficient is approximated by the polynomial form and the present numerical algorithm is employed to find the solution. Numerical experiments are presented to show the efficiency of the proposed method.

**Keywords:** parabolic equation, inverse problem, Levenberg-Marquardt
