Abstract: This paper describes a numerical model for the thawing of biological tissue induced by laser irradiation. The light propagation was calculated by seven-flux model. The solid-liquid phase change heat transfer was simulated by the equivalent heat capacity method. The program code was validated against a test problem and good agreement was obtained. Finally, the model was used to study the effects of the optical properties of tissue and the laser irradiation parameters on the thawing process of the biological tissue induced by laser heating.

Key words: biological tissue, laser, solid-liquid phase change, thawing