Numerical study on thermal and deformation analysis of biological tissue during thawing process

Knowledge of the temperature and deformation of biological tissue during cryosurgical re-warming is critical for the survival of healthy tissues. But few theoretical efforts are made to analyze the re-warming process of frozen biological tissue. To better understand the mechanisms involved, a 2D numerical example is used to simulating the thawing process of frozen biological tissue in the context of generalized bio-thermoelastic theory which can predict heat travels at finite speed. The effective heat capacity method and finite element method are used to obtain the temperature, deformation and the phase change process of biological tissue during thawing. The effects of relaxation time, initial temperature and surface heating temperature on the responses are discussed and illustrated graphically.