Non-contact imaging of skin thermal inertia by successive thermographic measurements

The purpose of this study was to estimate skin thermal inertia by successive thermographic measurements of the skin surface at a stepwise change in ambient radiation temperature. Two hoods maintained at different temperatures were mechanically switched to provide the stepwise change. A total of 65 thermograms were taken from 2 seconds before to 32 seconds after the hood switching. The skin thermal inertia was derived by applying a statistical curve fitting to successively measured thermograms, and images of skin emissivity and emissivity-corrected skin temperature could be obtained in a single measurement. Measurements were performed on the forehead, cheek, forearm, palm and back of the hand of 10 healthy male subjects, and the skin thermal inertia was scattered through a range of 1400/spl sim/2100 [Ws/sup 1/2/m/sup -2/K/sup -1/].