A space-fractional Pennes bioheat conduction model for skin tissue

Abstract

AbstractThis study attempts to develop a modified Pennes bioheat conduction model for skin tissue, by using space-fractional derivative. The developed fractional model is applied to capture the thermal behaviour of the skin tissue subjected to heating and cooling procedures. It is found that with the increase of the fractional order, the predicted temperature of the skin tissue at the heating stage increases, while it decreases at the cooling stage. Irrespective of the value of the fractional order, the simulated temperature along the skin tissue at both heating and cooling stages became stable after several seconds thermal conduction. The fractional model reduces to the original Pennes model when the fractional order equals to two.