Unsteady-state airflow and particle deposition in a three-generation human lung geometry.

The study of particle transport and deposition in the human lung is critical in health risk assessment of air pollutants and in pharmaceutical drug delivery. Several computational fluid dynamics (CFD) studies have investigated particle deposition in the lung for simplified airflow scenarios. A shortcoming with most CFD studies is uncertainty regarding flow boundary conditions, which directly impacts airflow and particle deposition. The influence of inlet and outlet conditions on airflow and particle deposition in lung common airways was assessed here. Common airways consisted of nine airways of the human lung ahead of lobes: the trachea, main, and lobar bronchi connected as a network of cylindrical tubes with dimensions based on morphometric measurements. Three different boundary conditions were used: (1) prescribed constant flow rate at the trachea entrance and atmospheric pressure at terminal branch exits, (2) atmospheric pressure at the trachea inlet and prescribed outlet flow rates corresponding to uniform lobar expansion, and (3) the same as case (2) with exit flow rates according to nonuniform lobar expansion. Unsteady airflow fields were numerically solved for a 2-s inhalation. Spherical particles of 1 nm to 10 microm diameter were injected at the trachea inlet, and particle deposition patterns during inhalation were evaluated. A Lagrangian particle tracking method was used that included particle inertia, gravity, and Brownian motion. Predicted flows showed similar trends but with a notable difference in magnitude. Lower particle deposition was found in case (1) for all particle sizes. The differences among these cases indicated the significance of realistic boundary conditions for accurate assessment of the flow field and particle deposition.