A new simplified thermoregulatory bioheat model for evaluating thermal response of the human body to transient environments

Thermal response of the human cutaneous thermoreceptors depends statically upon temperature and dynamically on the temperature change rate at the depth of the thermoreceptors. Therefore, it is very important to estimate the time-dependent thermoreceptors temperature with a good accuracy. On the other hand, the temperature distribution in skin tissue may be significantly affected by thermoregulatory mechanisms such as shivering, regulatory sweating and vasomotion. In the present study, a new simplified thermoregulatory bioheat model is proposed to describe heat transfer in skin tissue. The new model is constructed by combining the well-known Pennes equations with Gagge's two-node model. In this model, the human skin is subdivided into three layers (epidermis, dermis and subcutaneous) and the time-dependent temperature of skin tissue is obtained by solving the bioheat equations taking into account thermoregulatory mechanisms. The model has been verified by extensive comparisons with the published analytical and experimental results where a good agreement was found. Therefore, the present model can estimate the skin temperature under transient environments with a very good accuracy. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.