Detection of Damage in the Equine Hoof - A possible new application for the Hot Disk Method?

Abstract

The detection of damages inside the equine hoof capsule, such as keratomas, cracks and infections is sometimes hard with the methods available today. A non-invasive technique that aids in the search for these conditions would be of great help in order to find these conditions without causing unnecessary damage to the horse. This study investigates a possible application for an already existing thermal transport measurement technique known as the Hot Disk Method. In this technique, a spiral shaped sensor is pressed against the surface of the material while heated by an electrical current. By measuring the resulting temperature change in the sensor, information on the underlying material’s thermal properties can be obtained. The method is quick, compact and non-invasive since the total temperature increase is limited to a maximum of 5 K. Furthermore, the technique has shown capability of detecting structural changes within a material by probing the variation of thermal conductivity perpendicular to the sensor surface. Previously, tests have been conducted on conserved horse hooves where the layered structure of the hoof is detectable. This study focuses on gathering data from live, healthy horses without any known hoof conditions in order to start building up a database of information. It is a crucial step towards the development of a possible new tool which could become an aid in the work of veterinarians and farriers in the future. Short tests to obtain information about the thermal properties of the hooves are conducted, as well as longer tests to probe the conductivity variation to see whether structural difference is also detectable in live horse hooves. Furthermore, some short measurements are conducted on conserved hooves in a controlled laboratory environment for comparison. In addition, a COMSOL model of a horse hoof is constructed, with a heat source corresponding to the Hot Disk sensor, for numerical simulation of the conductivity vs. probing depth measurements.