Abstract
Medical imaging methods are generally used to diagnostics of respiratory diseases. The information of detailed lung morphology has been available by high-resolution CT images. Although, the CT images can show the structure of lung, there is no system to estimate the function of lung from image quantitatively. In this study, we simulated the pulmonary airflow based on the numerical calculation of 3-D fluid dynamics using CT image based voxel data. To derive the pressure and velocity profiles in the bronchi, we used the SMAC method with QUICK scheme. The area of fluid was defined as bronchi having the diameter larger than 1.5 mm (three times of the voxel size). Calculated results showed that the pressure gradient became large at the bronchial generation larger than 3rd. This behavior was consistent with 1-D analytical estimation. We could also reproduce the difference of pressure along each airway and the time-dependent behavior of airflow. The method of this study can provide the important therapeutic information of respiratory diseases.
