Aerosol deposition in human airways during breathing cycle

Abstract

A numerical model of the aerosol transport and deposition in human airways is presented. The model was acquired from a CT scan a living person and consist of 6-9 bifurcations giving around 100 terminations of the tree. The oral/nasal cavity was not modelled in the presented work. The deposition of the particles is given for two breathing regimes, the resting conditions with a tidal volume of 0.5 liter and 15l/min ventilation with period of 4sec/cycle and full exercise conditions with 3.33 liter tidal volume and 120l/min minute ventilation with cycle period of 1.25sec/cycle. The aerosol concentration was assumed 50μg/m3 distributed in the three size classes PM10, PM 5 and PM 1. The results shows deposition in different segments of the tracheo-bronchial tree as well as velocity profiles at different time steps of the breathing cycle.