Measurement of the Heat Removed by Devices for Skin Tags Treatment

Abstract

This paper describes a method for the comparison of the cooling capability of over-the-counter devices for skin tags removal. The comparison is performed by measuring the heat flux produced by the gas identified assessing the temperature difference across an element with a known thermal resistance; the temperature reached at the interface between the device and the heat-flux meter is also analyzed, although it is different from that of the skin during the treatment. The measurement accuracy has been experimentally evaluated and, with a confidence interval of 95%, is better than 6% for heat-flux measurements and lower than 0.3 °C for temperature measurements. The instrument allowed comparing the thermal efficiency of 19 dimethyl ether and propane devices of different types (dispenser, spray, and foam). Results are by far more reliable than those obtained with tests performed on subjects, where the intrinsic skin thermal properties variability prevents from assessing differences smaller than 30%

Modeling thermal contact resistance at the finger-object interface

“…Figure 2(a) compares contact resistances calculated using the reported value range as a function of applied pressure. Both R 00 cÀCMY and R 00 cÀPM are within the expected range of 0.001-0.01 m 2 KW −1 and follow comparable decreasing trend [7,9,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]27]. However, since G skin % 0.41 kPa [31] and PM model has an 1/4 exponent, R 00 cÀPM decreases faster and nearly saturates around 0.002 m 2 KW −1 past a contact pressure of 5 kPa.…”

“…The most commonly utilized model for predicting R c at finger-object interfaces [7,9,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] was developed in the 1960s by Cooper, Mikic and Yovanovich (CMY) to predict thermal contact resistance between two contacting materials (subscript 1 and 2) with random surface roughness that are much harder CONTACT Konrad Rykaczewski konradr@asu.edu Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here. TEMPERATURE 2019, VOL.…”