Numerical simulation of tissue freezing by liquid nitrogen based cryoprobe.

A model is presented to simulate the cooling processes during tumor cryosurgery with different kinds of flows through the cryoprobe. The heat flux between the cryoprobe wall and the tumor, the heat transfer coefficient under different inflow conditions are obtained numerically. The impact of the inlet mass flow rate, gas volume fraction on these parameters is investigated. It is found that the heat transfer coefficient decreased significantly when inflow changed from two-phase annular flow to droplet flow, and to gas flow. The inlet gas volume fraction and flow velocity only significantly affect the freezing ability of the probe when the inflow is gas or in droplet phase. Simulation of the tumor temperature profiles under different flow conditions show that the heat transfer coefficient is a crucial parameter in temperature prediction during cryosurgery. Results indicate that when the cryoprobe wall is assumed at a constant temperature conventionally, the cooling effect could be overestimated. It would be more reasonable to use the constant wall heat transfer coefficient to simulate the cooling progress under a specific flow.