Critical Evaluation of Current Skin Thermal Property Measurements

Burn treatment is an area of major importance in medicine, however, there is not currently an analytic method to determine the depth and magnitude of burns. Complications, such as a relative lack of knowledge of the specific thermal properties of skin and the relation between heat transfer and biological processes, have prevented a comprehensive model to explain the field of bioheat transfer. Research was conducted to estimate the relevant thermal and material properties in the field of bioheat transfer. Subsequently, an experiment was proposed, and a mathematical model was developed for the experiment, to allow for detection of burns through the use of heat transfer analysis. Burned skin and healthy skin differ in that there is no blood flow and thus no directionality to the heat transfer in burned skin. Thus, the experiment was designed to determine if there was a directionality was present in the heat transfer in the skin. Using the estimated skin properties, calculations were done to determine the viability of the proposed experiment. The experiment was refined to account for the findings and modified to more accurately detect burns in human skin.