Medicine
and Biology
Medicine &
Biology. Key words: heat flow of human beings, animals, heat/cold stress, clothing thermal
insulation, hypothermia, heat replacement in surgery, heat flux transducer.
Measurement of heat fluxes can serve various purposes: study of the
insulating effect of various types of clothing is one example. Hukseflux sensors are used
to test diving suits when immersed in cold water.
Other applications are found in the medical field; during surgery or
when in shock patients can suffer from heat and cold stress. Prematurely born infants
often cool down too quickly because their thermal regulation is not yet functional. These
effects can be monitored using heat flux sensors.
Also there are many examples where the body reacts to external
influences by generating heat; malignant tumors often have slightly elevated temperatures,
inflammation and allergic reactions can also generate heat.
Heat flux sensors can be used as a research tool for studying these
types of effects. The power of measuring heat flux is that it is much more sensitive than
a normal temperature measurement. See also our thermal
science section. Often it is not the absolute values that are measured in these experiments,
but two situations that are compared, or a process that is just qualitatively observed.
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