Numerical simulation of an impinging water jet applied to cooling human skin

A cooling technique based on an impinging water jet is described for protecting the skin tissues from thermal injury during laser treatment of skin diseases. Numerical modeling has been conducted to investigate the effect of both steady and pulsating water jet cooling within closely confined walls in conjunction with laser irradiation, in which an impingement circular water jet flow model has been suggested. To determine the effect of flow pulsation on the temperature field, a sinusoidal pulse waveform has been considered for the inlet flow. The governing mass, momentum and energy equations have been implemented in the suggested model and numerical simulations are presented. The theoretical and numerical results indicate that heat transfer enhancement can be obtained by introducing pulsating flow. Increasing the inlet flow velocity can also significantly increase the amount of heat transfer rate.