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Updated: Sep 16, 2026

Characterization of Thermal Transport in One-dimensional Solid Materials
Published on: January 26, 2014
Energy loss due to radiation in postmortem cooling. Part A: quantitative estimation of radiation using the
Abstract:
Conduction and convection are assumed to account for most of the energy loss from the dead body to the (cooler) environment. There are no quantitative estimations in the literature for the contribution of radiation to heat loss. The aim of the present paper was to estimate the radiation energy loss in postmortem cooling. The Stefan-Boltzmann law is used and combined with a single-exponential model for the cooling process of the skin derived from experimental data of Lyle and Cleveland (1956). The influence of various factors (e.g. skin temperature, environmental temperature, body mass and body height) on the amount of radiation emitted was investigated. The radiation energy is quantitatively described as a function of time. The radiation energy loss ranged from approximately 200 kJ in small (165 cm) and lean (50 kg) bodies at room temperature (20 degrees C) to approximately 600 kJ in tall (185 cm) and over-weight (100 kg) bodies at outdoor temperature (5 degrees C) in the first hour postmortem.
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Mechanisms of Heat Transfer
Conduction, accounting for approximately 3% of body heat loss at rest, is the process of exchanging heat between molecules of two materials in direct contact. This can result in both heat loss and gain. For instance, when the body is submerged in water, which conducts heat 20 times more effectively than air, it can either lose or gain significant heat.