Numerical resolution of the hyperbolic heat equation using smoothed mathematical functions instead of Heaviside and Dirac delta distributions

Abstract

The hyperbolic bioheat equation (HBE) has been used to model heating applications involving very short power pulses. This equation includes two mathematical distributions (Heaviside and Delta) which have to be necessarily substituted for smoothed mathematical functions when the HBE is solved by numerical methods. This study focuses on which type of smoothed functions would be suitable for this purpose, i.e. those which would provide solutions similar to those obtained analytically from the original Heaviside and Delta distributions. The logistic function was considered as a substitute for the Heaviside function, while its derivative and the probabilistic Gaussian function were considered as substitutes for the Delta distribution. We also considered polynomial interpolation functions, in particular, the families of smoothed functions with continuous second derivative without overshoot used by COMSOL Multiphysics. All the smoothed functions were used to solve the HBE by the Finite Element Method (COMSOL Multiphysics), and the solutions were compared to those obtained analytically from the original Heaviside and Delta distributions. The results showed that only the COMSOL smoothed functions provide a numerical solution almost identical to the analytical one. Finally, we demonstrated mathematically that in order to find a suitable smoothed function (f) that must adequately substitute any mathematical distribution (D) in the HBE, the difference D – f must have compact support.