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Prediction of temperature profiles in the human skin and subcutaneous tissues. (English) Zbl 0717.92011

Summary: Exact mathematical solutions in terms of confluent hypergeometric and Airy’s functions are obtained to study the steady state temperature distributions in human skin and subcutaneous tissues (SST). It is assumed that the skin is exposed to an air environment and heat transfer from the skin occurs by convection, radiation and evaporation.
A mathematical model of the SST, accounting for heat conduction, perfusion of the capillary beds and metabolic heat production of the dermis and subcutaneous tissues, has been solved to obtain interface temperatures for a wide range of environmental temperatures, rates of evaporation of sweat, wind speeds and relative humidities. The solutions provide inter-relationships between interface temperatures, thermal conductivities, metabolic heat production, blood perfusion, and thicknesses of various layers of SST and ambient temperature.

MSC:

92C30 Physiology (general)
80A20 Heat and mass transfer, heat flow (MSC2010)
33C10 Bessel and Airy functions, cylinder functions, \({}_0F_1\)
33C15 Confluent hypergeometric functions, Whittaker functions, \({}_1F_1\)
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