Thermography imaging for medical applications

Abstract

The Pennes equation is a heat equation for biological tissue. In the first part of the dissertation, dealing with the direct problem, we investigate the temperature distribution inside a domain consisting of two regions with different thermic properties subject to mixed boundary conditions, using five different numerical methods: the finite element method (FEM), boundary element method, method of fundamental solutions, finite difference method, and spectral method with FEM found to be the best. In the second part dealing with the inverse problem, FEM is used to estimate thermal and geometrical parameters of the system from the temperature distribution on the surface where measurements are available (i.e. skin surface). This scenario pertains to the medical application of infrared thermography.