Geometrically Accurate Three-Dimensional Infant Thermoregulation Models Based on Finite Element Method

Abstract

The core and skin temperature of an infant are essential physiological indicators of the baby’s health and an important reference in the selection of baby clothing. The main idea for this is that parents often wrap their infants in covers and clothing based on their own subjective experience, and infants do not have the ability to express themselves verbally, which is likely to result in over- or under-wrapping, leading to babies feeling too hot or too cold and even causing illness. Accurately predicting and determining infants’ skin and core temperatures at different ambient temperatures is a critical concern in infant clothing research. While the overall skin temperature of infants cannot be understood using traditional body temperature robotic measurements, this article develops a three-dimensional infant thermoregulation model with a geometrical appearance similar to an accurate infant model based on finite element method. Through geometric model construction, cell meshing, boundary condition loading, and user-defined functions program debugging, infants’ body surface and core temperature distribution under different ambient temperatures are calculated. The results were compared with published clinical temperature tests and validated, which were in good agreement with the actual test results and proved the validity of the model calculation. Providing a new method for infant temperature prediction, the findings of this study put forward a scientific reference for infant dressing selection and research on intelligent clothing.