Abstract
Mechanical ventilators are vital components of critical care services for patients with severe acute respiratory failure. In particular, pressure- and volume-controlled mechanical ventilation systems are the typical modes used in intensive care units (ICUs) to ventilate patients who cannot breathe adequately on their own. In this paper, a Simulink model is proposed to simulate these two typical modes employed in intensive care lung ventilators. Firstly, these two modes of ventilation are described in detail in the present paper. Secondly, the suggested Simulink model is analysed: it consists of using well-established subroutines already present in Simulink through the Simscape Fluids (gas) library, to simulate all the pneumatic components employed in some commercial ICU ventilators, such as pressure reducing valves, pressure relief valves, check valves, tanks, ON\OFF and proportional directional valves, etc. Finally, the simulation results of both modes in terms of pressure, tidal volume, and inspired/expired flow are compared with the real-life quantitative trends taken from previously recorded real-life experiments in order to validate the Simulink model. The accuracy of the model is high, as the numerical predictions are in good agreement with the real-life data, the percentage error being less than 10% in most comparisons. In this way, the model can easily be used by manufacturers and start-ups in order to produce new mechanical ventilators in the shortest time possible. Moreover, it can also be used by doctors and trainees to evaluate how the mechanical ventilator responds to different patients.
Highlights
The world health crisis due to COVID-19 is unprecedented
In comparison to the work conducted in [34,35], in which only the volume-controlled continuous mandatory ventilation (VC-continuous mandatory ventilation (CMV)) mode with a square flow pattern was simulated, in the present work, we show that simulations of different ventilation modes, i.e., the VC-CMV mode and pressure-controlled continuous mandatory ventilation (PC-CMV) mode, with different flow and pressure patterns, respectively, can be obtained using the proposed numerical codes
This paper focuses on the controlled mode, for which the mechanical ventilator performs 100% of the respiratory work, as these are the modes used on COVID-19 patients within the first 24 h of intensive care units (ICUs) stay
Summary
The world health crisis due to COVID-19 is unprecedented. Whilst the drive to find a vaccine has produced excellent results, a great number of people are still in intensive care and need specific treatment that is only available in specially equipped hospitals. The patient’s lungs and the trachea are reproduced in the model by setting the lung compliance and the resistance of the respiratory system, respectively In this way, the fundamental parameters and variables of the mechanical ventilation can be calculated and used by doctors to evaluate how the mechanical ventilator ical ventilators was investigated in [38] during the VC‐CMV and PC‐CMV modes. In this way, the fundamental parameters and variables of the mechanical ventilation can be calculated and used by doctors to evaluate how the mechanical ventilator responds to different patients.
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