Implantable devices, ultrasound imaging catheters, and ablation catheters (such as renal denervation catheters) are biomedical instruments that generate heat in the body. The generated heat can be harmful if the body temperature exceeds the limit of almost 315 K. This paper presents a heat-transfer model and analysis, to evaluate the temperature rise in human blood due to the power loss of medical catheters and implantable devices. The dynamic of the heat transfer is modeled for the blood vessel, at different blood flow velocities. The physics and governing equations of the heat transfer from the implanted energy source to the blood and temperature rise are expressed by developing a Non-Newtonian Carreau–Yasuda fluid model. We used a Finite Element method to solve the governing equations of the established model, considering the boundary conditions and average blood flow velocities of 0–1.4 m/s for the flow of the blood passing over the implanted power source. The results revealed a maximum allowable heat flux of 7500 and 15,000 W/m2 for the blood flow velocities of 0 and 1.4 m/s, respectively. The rise of temperature around the implant or tip of the catheter is slower and disappeared gradually with the blood flow, which allows a higher level of heat flux to be generated. The results of this analysis are concluded in the equation/correlation T=310+H3000(1+e−7V), to estimate and predict the temperature changes as a function of heat flux, H, and the blood flow velocity, V, at the implant/catheter location.

This work provides a numerical analysis of heat transfer from medical devices such as catheters and implants to the blood flow by considering the relative position of such power sources to the vessel wall. We have used COMSOL Multiphysics® software to simulate the heat transfer in the blood flow, using the finite element method and Carreau-–Yasuda fluid model (a non-Newtonian model for blood flow). The location of the power source is changed (from the center to near the wall) in the blood vessel with small steps, while the blood flow takes different velocities. The numerical simulations show that when the catheter/implant approaches the vessel wall, the temperature increases linearly for ~90% of the radial displacement from the centerline position to the vessel wall, while for the last 10% of the radial displacement, the temperature increases exponentially. As a result, the temperature is increased significantly, when changing the position of the catheter/implant from the centerline to the area adjacent to the vessel wall.