抄録
Surgery to relieve nasal hypertrophy is always performed without quantitative measurements of the effect on the airflow. In order to build up the objective measuring method of airflow in the human nasal cavity, the 3-dimensional numerical model in the human nasal cavity, concluding the nasopharynx was reconstructed from CT scans of a healthy nose. The airflows of the numerical model at inspiration and expiration as steady flow are analyzed by using finite element method (FEM). As a result, during inspiration, the most airflow in numerical model passed a middle meatus and an inferior meatus. The airflow at expiration also showed the same tendency as that of inspiration. During inspiration and expiration, the airflow in the superior meatus having the function of olfaction was small. Meanwhile, there were articulate differences between right and left nose in point of the velocity distribution and the wall shear stress distribution.
