A Simple Finite Element Model of Heat Transfer in the Human Eye

Abstract

A simple finite element 2D model of the human eye is developed to calculate the steady-state temperature distribution. The mathematical model of the eye is based on the Pennes bioheat transfer equation. Problem is solved using the weak formulation and the Galerkin-Bubnov procedure. The study was performed to determine the effects of various values of thermal conductivity of lens on temperature distribution inside human eye and also the effects due to changes in ambient temperature and blood temperature.

Studies of ocular heat transfer using the boundary element method

“…Campo [24] and Cvetković et al [50] using two-dimensional models are smaller than the other temperatures presented in Table 2.4. This is only to be expected since a twodimensional model generally underestimates the heat flow inside the actual eye.…”

“…The isolated model approach is perhaps the most commonly used technique in the mathematical studies of ocular heat transfer. Examples include the models developed by Scott [22,48], Amara [23], Okuno [49] and Cvetkovič et al [50]. In this approach, the human eye is modeled as an organ that is isolated from the human head, i.e.…”

“…This makes the approach better suited for investigating the temperature distribution inside the human eye. A sketch of the hu-man eye model developed by Cvetkovič et al [50] using the isolated model approach is illustrated in Figure 1 Figure 1-4, it is apparent that the model developed using the isolated model approach is more complicated than the models developed using the simplified model approach. This may increase the computer memory needed to perform the numerical computations.…”

“…Human eye models that have been developed in the past for investigating the ocular temperature distribution were mainly based on the finite element method [22,23,48,50].…”

“…According to Purslow and Wolffsohn [8], the limbus can be as high as 1 o C warmer than the temperature at the center of the corneal surface. acknowledged the significance of heat radiation by introducing an additional heat transfer coefficient to account for the heat loss due to radiation [22,48,75,93], others have chosen to ignore this term [50,63]. From the boundary condition specified on the corneal surface (see Equation (23)), the heat flux due to radiation, q rad is simply given by the expression…”