ENERGY-LOSS DUE TO RADIATION IN POSTMORTEM COOLING - PART A - QUANTITATIVE ESTIMATION OF RADIATION USING THE STEFAN-BOLTZMANN LAW

Conduction and convection are assumed to account for most of the energ y loss from the dead body to the (cooler) environment. There are no qu antitative estimations in the literature for the contribution of radia tion to heat loss. The aim of the present paper was to estimate the ra diation energy loss in postmortem cooling. The Stefan-Boltzmann law is used and combined with a single-exponential model for the cooling pro cess of the skin derived from experimental data of Lyle and Cleveland (1956). The influence of various factors (e.g. skin temperature, envir onmental temperature, body mass Emd body height) on the amount of radi ation emitted was investigated. The radiation energy is quantitatively described as a function of time. The radiation energy loss ranged fro m approximately 200 kJ in small (165 cm) and lean (50 kg) bodies at ro om temperature (20 degrees C) to approximately 600 kJ in tall (185 cm) and over-weight (100 kg) bodies at outdoor temperature (5 degrees C) in the first hour postmortem.