J0102-1-4 Simulation of pulmonary airflow and transport processes

Abstract

CT images of lung are generally used for diagnostics of respiratory diseases. However, there is no system to estimate the function of lung from images quantitatively. In this paper, we report the analysis of the pulmonary airflow and oxygen transport by voxel image based 3-D simulation. We used the voxel data which was consist of bronchi having the diameter larger than 1.5 mm. The oxygen transport by advection and diffusion are treated by CIP method. Calculated pressure profile along the direction of airflow was consistent with l-D analytical estimation. We could also reproduce the pressure profile and the time-dependence of asymmetric bifurcation flow. The axial and the transverse profiles of oxygen concentration showed the behavior of the time development of gas mixture on the asymmetric air passages in lung. The method of this study can be applied to quantitative diagnostics of respiratory diseases.