Estimation of the equivalent perfusion rate of Pennes model in an experimental bionic tissue without blood flow

Abstract This study designs an experiment to investigate the equivalent perfusion rate of Pennes model when the bionic tissue has no blood feeding. This experimental model is constructed by stainless steel plates to be a hollow cube, and inside filled in with agar gel as the bionic tissue. A heating plate on the top of agar gel cube gives a certain heat generation into the bionic tissue, and three thermocouples at different positions measure the transient temperature during the experiment. On the other hand, this study uses a software package to simulate the tissue temperature using the Pennes model based on the experimental parameters. Moreover, an algorithm applying the conjugated gradient method can find the equivalent perfusion rate in Pennes model by the iterating comparison between the numerical and experimental temperatures. The results show that the equivalent parameters found by this algorithm conform to the expected values, and the predicting temperatures calculated by the Pennes model with the theoretical perfusion rate also agree with the experimental data. This result indicates that not only the experiment is accurate, but also the numerical method for finding the equivalent parameters is reliable. This accurate and reliable experimental and numerical method will be applied to future research for finding the equivalent perfusion rate in Pennes model and equivalent heat transfer coefficient in porous model when the tissue has blood flow.