Lattice Boltzmann Method and Its Application in Respiratory Tract Simulations

presentation, poster

en

Aerosol particles like dust involved in the air can pass through the respiratory tract and can be deposited there. The long-term deposition of fine solid particles in the lower airways can stimulate lung diseases. In contrary, for the healing of certain lung diseases, the delivering of medicament’s to the lower airways is important. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) enables to simulate the flow field and the particles deposition in the lungs. By this method, it is possible to identify the probability of reaching particles into the lower airways through the tracheo-bronchial tree. In this presentation, the flow field in the child lungs (5-year-old) in a constant sedentary breathing regime was simulated using the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) with the LES Smagorinsky turbulence model. To verify the calculated velocities by LBM in OpenLB software, the finite volume RANS simulation in Star-CCM+ was performed. The results showed the good agreement in the upper part of the airways. Some discrepancies were found in the lower part. Nevertheless, LBM and OpenLB were proven to be a capable tool to solve the air flow through the respiratory tract and will be used for particle deposition. As a next step this method could be extended for simulating not spherical particles such as fibers. This is imolpemented in the Euler Lagrange Euler Rotation approach and could result in higher accuracy compared to equivalent diameter appraoches.

Aerosol particles like dust involved in the air can pass through the respiratory tract and can be deposited there. The long-term deposition of fine solid particles in the lower airways can stimulate lung diseases. In contrary, for the healing of certain lung diseases, the delivering of medicament’s to the lower airways is important. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) enables to simulate the flow field and the particles deposition in the lungs. By this method, it is possible to identify the probability of reaching particles into the lower airways through the tracheo-bronchial tree. In this presentation, the flow field in the child lungs (5-year-old) in a constant sedentary breathing regime was simulated using the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) with the LES Smagorinsky turbulence model. To verify the calculated velocities by LBM in OpenLB software, the finite volume RANS simulation in Star-CCM+ was performed. The results showed the good agreement in the upper part of the airways. Some discrepancies were found in the lower part. Nevertheless, LBM and OpenLB were proven to be a capable tool to solve the air flow through the respiratory tract and will be used for particle deposition. As a next step this method could be extended for simulating not spherical particles such as fibers. This is imolpemented in the Euler Lagrange Euler Rotation approach and could result in higher accuracy compared to equivalent diameter appraoches.

Lattice Boltzmann Method; Deposition; Euler-Rotation;Fibers; Lungs

13.06.2023

Biomedical Fluid Mechanics

Akademie Věd Praha