Towards a Uncertainty Analysis in Thermal Protection using Phase-change Micro/Nano Particles during Hyperthermia

In thermal protection of healthy tissues during hyperthermia with the phase-change micro/nano-materials, the impossibility of performing a similar experiment with the theoretical parameters is inevitable because of different errors such as modeling, measuring, particle deposition area, etc. These errors may affect the practical thermal protection from damaging the healthy tissue or not destroying the tumor tissue. To perform a numerical procedure, the electrical potential is obtained solving the Laplace equation and the Pennes Biothermal equation is used to find the temperature distribution in the tissue using the finite difference method. The Pennes equation is transiently resolved by considering intracellular conductance, blood perfusion, and metabolic heating. Consequently, the deviation and the uncertainty of each parameters in the thermal protection including the concentration of the phase change material, the radius of microcapsules, the latent heat, the melting point, the temperature range of phase change of micro/nanoparticles, and the concentration and the radius of the superparamagnetic materials are investigated. According to the results of the uncertainty analysis, the radius of the superparamagnetic materials is the most important parameter so that a 20% deviation from the numerical value changes the temperature of the tissue up to 4 °C.