Abstract
Indoor air quality and its effect on respiratory health are reliant on understanding the level of inhalation exposure, particle inhalability, and particle deposition in the respiratory airway. In the indoor environment, controlling airflow through different ventilation systems can reduce inhalation exposure. This produces a wide variety of complex flow phenomena, such as recirculation, coanda flow, separation, and reattachment. Airborne particles drifting through the air, that move within the breathing region become inhaled into nasal cavity the nostrils. Studies have developed the aspiration efficiency to assist in predicting the fraction of inhaled particles. Inside the nasal cavity, micron and submicron particle deposition occurs in very different ways (inertial impaction, sedimentation, diffusion) and different locations. In addition, fibrous particles such as asbestos are influenced by tumbling effects and its deposition mechanism can include interception. Indoor fluid-particle dynamics related to inhalation exposure and eventual deposition in the respiratory airway is presented. This study involves multi-disciplinary fields involving building science, fluid dynamics, computer science, and medical imaging disciplines. In the future, an integrated approach can lead to digital/in-silico representations of the human respiratory airway able to predict the inhaled particle exposure and its toxicology effect.
Highlights
The convergence of fluid dynamics, computer science, and medical imaging disciplines has produced a multi-disciplinary field of computational modelling of the human respiratory airway
The human nasal cavity is the primary route for connecting the air we breathe through our nostrils
Experimental and computational multiphase studies exploring the relationship between airway geometry, flow phenomena, and physiology lead to a better understanding of the consequences of both intentional and unintentional inhalation exposure to particles and droplets in the air
Summary
The convergence of fluid dynamics, computer science, and medical imaging disciplines has produced a multi-disciplinary field of computational modelling of the human respiratory airway. To obtain concentration fractions at each particle transport stage, studies have investigated: (i) inhalation exposure or drug delivery, (ii) particle deposition flux in the nasal cavity surface, and more recently (iii) particle penetration through the mucus. These individual studies can be integrated to include pulmonary system where drug delivery from a medical device or airborne particles is tracked down to the lungs. This provides an integrated, comprehensive analysis and a holistic view of cause–effect therapeutic or toxicology assessment. This review brings to date the activities of particle inhalation in both toxicology and therapeutic context, and the recent advances in technology that will drive future
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