Measurement of thermal properties of the skin

• Autorzy: Togawa T. , Otsuka K. , Hassan M.
• Języki publikacji: EN

Abstrakty

EN

The skin is the boundary between the body and its thermal environment, and heat dissipation from the body depends on the thermal properties of the skin such as thermal conductivity and specific heat as well as emissivity when radiation heat transfer is involved. Such parameters can vary with physiological conditions, especially, thermal conductivity of the skin depends largely on the blood perfusion, and thus in vivo measurement is required. The authors have developed a method of non-contact measurement of emissivity and thermal inertia that is defined as square root of the product of thermal conductivity, density and specific heat. The principle of this method is based on measurement at a transient when a constant heat load is applied abruptly to the skin surface by changing the ambient radiation temperature in step-wise fashion. Emissivity and thermal inertia can be determined from the change in radiation from the skin surface at the transient and the slope of the gradual change of the skin surface temperature. By this principle, imaging of thermal parameters was realized. While accurate measurement of small surface temperature change is required, it was shown that high precision thermography systems could be used for this purpose, and we obtained thermal parameters of the skin under normal and suppressed or enhanced blood perfusion. A convenient calibration method was also proposed in which effective ambient radiation temperature can be computed from simultaneously-measured apparent temperatures of two test plates maintained at different temperatures and having two or more different emissivity areas in each plate. In this paper, various in vivo measurement methods of thermal properties of the skin are reviewed briefly, and the method recently developed and improved by authors was shown in detail.

Słowa kluczowe

EN

emissivity; thermal inertia; imaging; skin; thermography

PL

inżynieria biomedyczna; biomechanika; biomedycyna

• Wydawca: Nałęcz Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering of the Polish Academy of Sciences ; Elsevier
• Czasopismo: Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering
• Rocznik: 2002
• Tom: Vol. 22, no. 4
• Strony: 55--68
• Opis fizyczny: Bibliogr., rys., wykr.

Twórcy

autor

Togawa T.

autor

Otsuka K.

autor

Hassan M.

• Institute of Biomaterials and Bioengineering, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan,