A porous model of human forearm for heat transfer analysis by finite element method

Heat transfer in biological tissues based on the theory of porous media has recently attracted attention because porous media play an important role in many biomedical applications. In this study, a porous model of human forearm was proposed, which took the blood-tissue convection into consideration. Finite element method was used to analyze the heat transfer equation. In addition, the influences of porosity, metabolic heat generation rate and environment temperature on the temperature distribution of human forearm were investigated. The simulation results showed that the temperature of the arterial vessel was higher than surrounding tissues. The temperature of muscle increased when the tissue porosity, metabolic heat generation rate and environment temperature increased. This study showed that the porous model could be a feasible and potential model for the study of human body thermal simulation.