MODELING THERMAL SKIN BURNS ON A PERSONAL-COMPUTER

Mathematic models have been used for several decades to predict the se verity of burn injury that would result from application of a given th ermal stress to the surface of the skin. Solution of the governing mat hematic equations has been achieved either by analytic methods, with r equired simplifying assumptions that may compromise the rigor with whi ch the results are applied, or by numeric methods, which require progr aming of finite element or finite difference codes in computer languag es. In recent years microcomputer hardware and the associated software have become both powerful and relatively simple to use, and the price per unit of computing capability has dropped dramatically. Thus it is now possible to perform on a desktop machine with relative ease calcu lations that previously might have been prohibitively complex or expen sive. Modeling of burn injuries fits into this category. This article presents a straightforward method for implementing a finite difference solution to the burn process through the combination of a Macintosh p ersonal computer and a widely used spreadsheet software program; this hardware and software combination has been used widely for a broad spe ctrum of general computing activities. This article presents a model f or a surface thermal burn, as implemented for solution on a spreadshee t, with example runs to illustrate and verify the method.