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Journal of Molecular Liquids: M. Rahimi-Gorji, O. Pourmehran, M. Gorji-Bandpy, T.B. Gorji
Journal of Molecular Liquids: M. Rahimi-Gorji, O. Pourmehran, M. Gorji-Bandpy, T.B. Gorji
Journal of Molecular Liquids: M. Rahimi-Gorji, O. Pourmehran, M. Gorji-Bandpy, T.B. Gorji
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: In this work, the airflow behavior and particle transport and deposition in different breathing conditions such as
Received 17 March 2015 light breathing condition (15 L/min), normal breathing condition (30 L/min) and heavy breathing condition
Received in revised form 13 May 2015 (60 L/min) are investigated. The realistic geometry data was reconstructed from CT-scan images of the human
Accepted 15 May 2015
airways with 0.5 mm thickness of slices. The CT-scan images (DICOM files) are imported in the 3D-DOCTOR
Available online 28 May 2015
software and all slices were segmented. Then, the output has been imported in CATIA-V5 software. Finally,
Keywords:
face, volume, mesh and extension tubes at inlet and outlets were created and then imported into ANSYS FLUENT
Airflow behavior 15. The Lagrangian approach is used to evaluating the transport and deposition of inhaled micro-particles. The
Particle deposition presented results showed that for dp = 5 μm and 10μm, when flow rate ¼ 30 min L
and for dp = 1 μm, when
Breathing conditions flow rate ¼ 15 min L
, the particle deposition fraction have maximum amount. For flow rate ¼ 15 min L
and ¼
Realistic geometry L
30 min , the maximum deposition occurs in the zone number 1 and for flow rate ¼ 60 min L
occurs in the zone
CFD simulation number 4. Also, the maximum pressure distribution happens when flow rate ¼ 60 min L
which would be accept-
able. According to the results, the particles tended to go to the right branch and the minimum number of particles
crossed the zone numbers 6 and 11.
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Inhaling through the mouth, therapeutic drugs have their site of
action in the large and/or small conducting airways. Inhalers designed
It is common for people to behold particles in the air and sense for the delivery of therapeutic factors maximize the respiratory deposi-
air entering into human bodies through breathing. Human lungs are tion as inhalable aerosol particles. Although, particles may deposit in
one of the body's important and largest organs. Their function is gas another place in the respiratory tract, mainly in the upper respiratory
exchange, delivering oxygen and removing wasted carbon dioxide. tract or peripheral airspaces resulting in undesirable side effects and
Air goes into the body through nostrils and mouth into trachea, which waste. Deposition of these particles in the lung periphery furthermore
is then divided into left and right primary bronchi. The bronchus branch is being futile in this region. The amount and location of particle deposi-
out into secondary bronchi and then each subdivides into tertiary tion in the respiratory tract depends on both the particle size and the
bronchi and so on, reducing diameter throughout the structure until human's flow patterns during inhalation [2,3].
the respiratory bronchioles which scatter air to the alveoli. Today, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been applied to character-
drug delivery to the specified location is concerned. In fact, human ize the fluid flow in human airway models. CFD has obtained significant
health by controlling particles that enter human body is considered. interest in both the medical and engineering community because of its
Aerosol drug therapy, which mainly delivers the drug location of inter- non-invasive character. It can predict the fluid flow characteristics when
est, is a quickly advancing field of research [1]. With the recent advances one or multiple input flow variables are changed. In addition, it permits
in analysis of micro- and nanoparticles, drug delivery has indicated investigation of different flow variables and fluid forces to a level of fine
great potential for pulmonary application, not only for local therapy detail.
but for systemic therapy as well. Simple geometric configuration led to CFD simulations and gave a
first vision into particle deposition and flow patterns in the airways
[4–6]. Bala'sha'zy [7] investigated a wide range of submicron and
⁎ Corresponding author at: Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, P.O. Box 484,
Babol, Iran.
micron-size particles in bifurcating tubes numerically for computing
E-mail addresses: m69.rahimi@yahoo.com (M. Rahimi-Gorji), gorji@nit.ac.ir trajectories. The fluid flow and particle deposition patterns in an
(M. Gorji-Bandpy). asymmetric single bifurcation are simulated by Gatlin et al. [8].
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2015.05.031
0167-7322/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
122 M. Rahimi-Gorji et al. / Journal of Molecular Liquids 209 (2015) 121–133
Fig. 3. CT-scan images of present study. Red circles indicate locations of central airway stents.
124 M. Rahimi-Gorji et al. / Journal of Molecular Liquids 209 (2015) 121–133
Fig. 4. (a) Three dimensional reconstructed geometry from CT-scan images. (b) Realistic 3D airway model (extended inlet and outlets with CATIA-V5 software). (c) Divided zones of
geometry.
Fig. 6. Comparison of the particle deposition fraction between present work's results and
Fig. 5. 3D volume mesh generation. Nowak et al.'s work [12].
M. Rahimi-Gorji et al. / Journal of Molecular Liquids 209 (2015) 121–133 125
Fig. 8. Total deposition fraction of different zones for different flow rate with dp = 5 μm.
2. Methodology
Fig. 7. 3D view bar for deposition fraction of different zones for three particle diameter
with (a) flow rate ¼ 15 min
L
, (b) flow rate ¼ 30 minL
, and flow rate ¼ 60 min
L
.
Fig. 9. Total deposition fraction of different flow rate with different particle diameter.
126 M. Rahimi-Gorji et al. / Journal of Molecular Liquids 209 (2015) 121–133
∂ui
¼ 0; ð1Þ
∂xi
Fig. 10. Cross sectional views of the velocity magnitude contour of airways for dp = 5 μm
L L L L L L
with (a) 15 min , (b) 30 min and (c) 60 min. Fig. 11. Contours of pressure distribution for (a) 15 min, (b) 30 min and (c) 60 min.
M. Rahimi-Gorji et al. / Journal of Molecular Liquids 209 (2015) 121–133 127
Pseudo-vorticity (x) equation: on the convective/radioactive heat and mass transfer from the particle,
" # using the local continuous phase conditions as the particle moves
∂ω ∂ω ω ∂u ∂ ∂ω through the flow. Numerous applications using DPM model are particle
þ uj ¼ α τ i j i −βω2 þ ðυ þ σ ω υT Þ : ð4Þ
∂t ∂x j k ∂x j ∂x j ∂x j separation and classification, spray drying, aerosol dispersion, bubble
sparging of liquids, liquid fuel and coal combustion. The particle trajec-
tory was computed through the equation of the balance of forces acting
Where the turbulent viscosity is given as υT = Cμfμk/ω, and the func- on that particle. The equation describing the particle velocity, in the
tion fμ is defined as fμ = exp[−3.4/(1 + RT/50)2] with RT = ρk/(μω). The Lagrange formulation, for a Cartesian coordinate system has the form
other coefficients in the above equations are:
∂up g x ρp −ρ
C μ ¼ 0:09; α ¼ 0:555; β ¼ 0:8333; β ¼ 1; σ k ¼ σ ω ¼ 0:5: ¼ F D u−up þ ; ð5Þ
∂t ρp
2.3. Discrete phase model (DPM) where FD(u − up) is the drag force per unit particle mass (acceleration
due to drag) and
The discrete phase model (DPM) can be included in the ANSYS
18μ C D Rer
FLUENT model by defining the initial position, velocity, size and temper- FD ¼ 2 24
: ð6Þ
ature of individual particles. These initial conditions along with the ρp dp
physical properties of the discrete phase are utilized to initiate trajecto-
ry and heat/mass transfer calculations. The trajectory and heat/mass Here, u is the fluid velocity, up is the particle velocity, μ is the dynamic
transfer calculations are based on the force balance on the particle and viscosity of the fluid, ρ is the fluid density, ρp is the density of the particle
L L L
Fig. 12. Streamlines of airflow in airways for (a) 15 min, (b) 30 min and (c) 60 min .
128 M. Rahimi-Gorji et al. / Journal of Molecular Liquids 209 (2015) 121–133
and dp is the particle diameter. Rer is the relative Reynolds number, which iteration for each particle, the information about position, time, and
is defined as three components of velocity as well as the speed with which the parti-
cles cross the control volume boundaries was obtained. Particles of spe-
ρdp up −u cific sizes were injected in a uniform distribution at the inlet face of the
Rer ¼ : ð7Þ
μ computation domain, and tracked through the geometry until they met
one of three fates: (1) trapping on a surface by collision, (2) escape from
The drag coefficient, CD is obtained using the following formula: the domain through one of the outlet faces, or (3) continued suspension
in the flow. The fate of the particles were then recorded and summa-
a2 a3 rized as a particle history file. One-way coupling is assumed between
C D ¼ a1 þ þ ; ð8Þ
Rer Re2r the air and particle flow fields and the interaction between particles is
also neglected because the particle flow is dilute [31,32]. In this work,
where ai are constants that employ to smooth spherical particles over the particle characteristics include:
several ranges of Re given by Morsi and Alexander [34].
Eq. (3) is the particle trajectory equation. It has been solved by the
kg
same commercial software. ANSYS-FLUENT 15 guesses the trajectory • Particle density: ρp ¼ 1000 m3 , spherical particles.
of discrete phase particles by integrating the force balance on each s , 5:2622 10 s and 4:2097
−8 kg
particle, which is written in a Lagrangian reference frame. After each 10 s.
Fig. 13. Particles situation at t = 0.01 s after start injection with dp = 5 μm for (a) m¼ 15 min
L
, (b) m¼ 30 min
L
and (c) m¼ 60 min
L
.
M. Rahimi-Gorji et al. / Journal of Molecular Liquids 209 (2015) 121–133 129
• Particle diameter (dp): 1, 5, and 10 μm. conditions such as light breathing condition (15 L
min), normal breath-
• Velocity: the same as inlet velocity. ing condition (30 L L
min)
and heavy breathing condition (60 min ). As
early mentioned, one of the most important features of this research
kg is using realistic geometry that reconstructed from CT-scan
Also, the air properties are assumed constant (ρair ¼ 1:2 m3 andμ air ¼
images. Fig. 6 shows the comparison of the particle deposition frac-
1:8 10−5 m
Ns
2) and the flow regime is consider steady and turbulent. The tion between present work and Nowak et al. [12] work results. They
deposition fraction (DF) is defined as studied particle deposition in a geometry based on the Weibel lung
model. In their steady simulations, the used flow rate was 28:3 min L
. It
Number of deposited particles
DFð%Þ ¼ 100: ð9Þ is obvious that the results of present work have good agreement
Number of injected particles
with Nowak et al.'s results and little difference between these are
due to the different flow rate (30 and 28.3 L/min).
3. Results and discussion Fig. 7 depicts the deposition fraction in different zones for flow
rate ¼ 15 min
L L
(7-a), 30 min L
(7-b) and 60 min (7-c). As can be seen in this
The main aim of this work is investigating the airflow behavior and figure, independent of the flow rate, the maximum deposition happens
particle transport and deposition fraction in different breathing for dp = 10 μm. For flow rate ¼ 15 L
min
L
and 30 min , the maximum
Fig. 14. Particles situation at t = 0.03 s after start injection with dp = 5 μm for (a) m¼ 15 min
L
, (b) m¼ 30 min
L
and (c) m¼ 60 min
L
.
130 M. Rahimi-Gorji et al. / Journal of Molecular Liquids 209 (2015) 121–133
deposition occurs in the zone number 1 and for flow rate ¼ 60 min L
, it oc- L
30 min and for dp = 1 μm, when flow rate ¼ 15 minL
, the particle deposi-
curs in the zone number 4. For various flow rate such as 15 , 30 and tion fraction is maximum.
L Fig. 10 shows the cross sectional views of the velocity magnitude
60 min , the maximum deposition fraction of them are 6.5 %, 26.4 % and
7.94 % respectively (dp = 10 μm). The location of minimum deposition contour of airways for flow rate ¼ 15 min L
(10-a), 30 minL
(10-b) and
was not precisely predictable and didn't follow a specific pattern. It is L
60 min (10-c). Because of the realistic geometry, cross sectional of differ-
obvious, for flow rate ¼ 60 min L
and dp = 1μm, deposition fraction is ent parts of the airways aren't constant and as a result, some parts are
zero due to large value of flow velocity and the small value of particle narrower. For this reason, the velocity magnitude in smaller cross-
diameter. Also according to this figure, when dp = 1 μm, the maximum sectional area is more than other locations. Contours of pressure distri-
deposition fraction is for flow rate ¼ 15 min
L
in location of zone number 4 bution for different flow rate are displayed in Fig. 11. According to these
and when dp = 5μm and 10μm, the maximum deposition fraction is for contours, the maximum pressure distribution occurs when flow rate ¼
flow rate ¼ 30 minL
in location of zone number 1. Fig. 8 depicts the total L
60 min that it is logical. Fig. 12 shows the streamlines of airflow in air-
deposition fraction of different zones for different flow rate with dp = ways. The presented figure depicted that in some places of airways, vor-
5 μm that clarified the illustrations of Fig. 7. Next, Fig. 9 demonstrates tices have been formed that causing more turbulence intensity in the
the total deposition fraction of different flow rate with different particle flow. This phenomena happens due to the realistic human respiratory
diameters by graph. As can be seen in this figure, all of the explanations tracts are irregular in shape. Based on the observation that emerged
of early figures (Figs. 7 and 8) could be corrected and acceptable. In fact, from the figure, it can be said in first bifurcation, for all three cases
this figure illustrated that for dp = 5 μm and 10 μm, when flow rate ¼ (flow rate = 15, 30 and 60 min L
) more fluid flows to the right branch.
Fig. 15. Particles situation at t = 0.05 s after start injection with dp = 5 μm for (a) m¼ 15 min
L
, (b) m¼ 30 min
L
and (c) m¼ 60 min
L
.
M. Rahimi-Gorji et al. / Journal of Molecular Liquids 209 (2015) 121–133 131
Fig. 16. Particles situation at t = 0.8 second after start injection with dp = 5 μm for (a) m¼ 15 min
L
, (b) m¼ 30 min
L
and (c) m¼ 60 min
L
.
132 M. Rahimi-Gorji et al. / Journal of Molecular Liquids 209 (2015) 121–133
Fig. 17. Particles situation when t = 0.4 s with dp = 5 μm for (a) m¼ 15 min
L
, (b) m¼ 30 min
L
and (c) m¼ 60 min
L
.
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