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Mathematical Model of Airflow in the Lungs of Children II: Effects of Ventilatory Parameters
X. Guan,1 R. A. Segal,2 M. Shearer,2 and T. B. Martonen
3,41Department of Medicine, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA
2Department of Mathematics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
3National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, U.S. EPA, Mail Drop 74, RTP, NC 27711, USA
4Division of Pulmunary Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
Abstract
In an effort to develop more effective aerosol therapy procedures, we examined airflow patterns in the lung of a child (age four years). In particular, we were concerned with how ventilatory parameters (i.e., breathing rate and tidal volume) affected the patterns of airflow around tumors. To conduct the study, a computational fluid dynamics package, FIDAP was used to define a model lung. The results of simulations show the extent to which changing ventilatory parameters can affect flow patterns in the neighborhood of the tumors as well as drug distribution throughout the lung.
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 Hindawi Publishing Corporation. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
