Survey of numerical bioheat transfer modelling for accurate skin surface measurements

Abstract

The investigation of heat transfer and blood flow rate in biological systems challenges accurate numerical models. More than a half century, the Pennes bioheat transfer equation has been a typical model to predict temperature diffusion in tissues of a living organism. Although Pennes model has some limitations due to its theoretical basis, but surprisingly it has been used to predict temperature distributions in many applications. After Pennes model, many investigators proposed some alternative mathematical models for heat transferring in biological processes. They have challenged to overcome the previous models’ limitations. Bioheat transfer modelling has been useful in many therapeutic and diagnostic applications. For example, in breast thermography which is a technique based on measuring the skin temperature. By solving bioheat transfer equation using the profile of breast skin surface temperature captured by an infrared camera, the undiscovered thermophysical or geometrical variables of a tumor zone can be estimated. Burn injury is another example. By applying bioheat transfer modelling, burn injury developed from exposure of skin to the heat source can be assessed as well as the extent of burn injury can be determined. In this survey, we go through some different proposed bioheat transferring models with their strengths and weaknesses.