Fluid structure interaction studies of human airways

Abstract

Study of flow characteristics of human airways using Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) analysis is very important in the context of prognosis, diagnostic and treatment of respiratory diseases. The present study is focused on effect of elasticity on the respiratory wall during inhalation. Airflow in Computed Tomography (CT) scan model with rigid and compliant airway walls is studied. FSI technique is used to simulate the airflow in the model. The comparison for the two different respiratory models (rigid and compliant) shows that FSI technique brings out more realistic results as compared to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis. It is found that respiratory wall elasticity affects the different flow parameters (pressure, wall shear stress, etc.) at different location of the model. Wall shear stress (WSS) and airway pressure were decreased due to flexibility effect of the airway wall. This will help medical practitioners to correlate the clinical assessment with this FSI results.