Numerical thermal analysis of skin tissue using parabolic and hyperbolic approaches

The understanding of heat transfer in skin tissue is of utmost significance in various areas. Especially in medicine is required a precise determination of the temperature distribution for not thermally damaging healthy tissue when any region of the body is subjected to a heat treatment. The accuracy in predicting temperatures is linked to the use of adequate thermal and numerical methods. In this way, this study presents the results of a two-dimensional model to calculate transient temperature and burn injury distributions in skin tissue. Heat transfer was modeled using the Pennes' thermal model, and the mechanism of heat conduction assessed through two different approaches, classical Fourier law and non-Fourier law, characterized mathematically as parabolic and hyperbolic, respectively. The numerical solutions of the two approaches were compared to analytical solutions reported in the literature, as well as are shown various numerical results under various conditions to evaluate the differences between the two approaches to predict the temperature distribution and thermal damage.