Three-dimensional model on thermal response of skin subject to laser heating

Wensheng Shen, Jun Zhang, Fuqian Yang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

A three-dimensional (3D) multilayer model based on the skin physical structure is developed to investigate the transient thermal response of human skin subject to laser heating. The temperature distribution of the skin is modeled by the bioheat transfer equation, and the influence of laser heating is expressed as a source term where the strength of the source is a product of a Gaussian shaped incident irradiance, an exponentially shaped axial attenuation, and a time function. The water evaporation and diffusion is included in the model by adding two terms regarding the heat loss due to the evaporation and diffusion, where the rate of water evaporation is determined based on the theory of laminar boundary layer. Cryogen spray cooling (CSC) in laser therapy is studied, as well as its effect on the skin thermal response. The time-dependent equation is discretized using the finite difference method with the Crank-Nicholson scheme and the stability of the numerical method is analyzed. The large sparse linear system resulted from discretizing the governing partial differential equation is solved by a GMRES solver and the expected simulation results are obtained.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)115-125
Number of pages11
JournalComputer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering
Volume8
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2005

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
*Corresponding author. E-mail: jzhang@cs.uky.edu; http://www.cs.uky.edu/,jzhang †This research work was supported in part by NSF under grants CCR-0092532 and ACR-0202934, in part by DOE under grant DE-FG02-02ER45961, and in part by University of Kentucky Faculty Research Support Program. § E-mail: wensheng@csr.uky.edu k E-mail: fyang0@engr.uky.edu

Keywords

  • Bioheat and mass transfer
  • Finite difference
  • Laser heating
  • Thermal injury

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Bioengineering
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Science Applications

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