Affiliation:
1. Department of Physics, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 35017 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
2. Cardiology Service, Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla, 39008 Santander, Spain
Abstract
In vivo determination of the skin’s thermal properties is of growing interest. Several types of sensors are being designed and tested. In this field, we have developed a skin calorimeter for the determination of the heat flow, the heat capacity and the thermal resistance of the skin. The calorimeter calibration consists of the determination of the parameters of the model we have chosen to represent the behavior of the device. This model considers the heat capacity and the thermal resistance of the skin, which depend on the case (body zone, subject, physical state, etc.) and also have a strong time dependence. Therefore, this work includes a validation study with reference materials. Finally, it is concluded that the heat capacity determined is a function of the thermal penetration depth of the measurement characteristics. In the case of high thermal conductivity materials in which the thermal penetration is nearly total, the heat capacity obtained coincides with that of the reference material sample.
Subject
Electrical and Electronic Engineering,Biochemistry,Instrumentation,Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics,Analytical Chemistry
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