The effect of temperature-dependent thermal conductivity in heat transfer simulations of frozen biomaterials.

The thermal conductivity value of pure water ice is inversely proportional to the temperature and decreases about 5-fold as the temperature increases from the liquid nitrogen boiling temperature (77 K to the freezing point of pure water. The temperature dependency of the thermal conductivity is typically overlooked in bioheat transfer simulations. A closed-form solution of the one-dimensional temperature distribution in frozen water and blood is presented in this study, based on a new thermal conductivity model. Results indicate that temperatures are overestimated up to 38K, and heat fluxes through the frozen region boundaries are underestimated by a factor of 2, when the temperature dependency of the thermal conductivity is neglected.