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Computational fluid dynamics simulations of respiratory airflow in human nasal cavity and its characteristic dimension study

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Abstract

To study the airflow distribution in human nasal cavity during respiration and the characteristic parameters of nasal structure, three-dimensional, anatomically accurate representations of 30 adult nasal cavity models were reconstructed based on processed tomography images collected from normal people. The airflow fields in nasal cavities were simulated by fluid dynamics with finite element software ANSYS. The results showed that the difference of human nasal cavity structure led to different airflow distribution in the nasal cavities and variation of the main airstream passing through the common nasal meatus. The nasal resistance in the regions of nasal valve and nasal vestibule accounted for more than half of the overall resistance. The characteristic model of nasal cavity was extracted on the basis of characteristic points and dimensions deduced from the original models. It showed that either the geometric structure or the airflow field of the two kinds of models was similar. The characteristic dimensions were the characteristic parameters of nasal cavity that could properly represent the original model in model studies on nasal cavity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China

    Jun Zhang, Yingxi Liu, Xiuzhen Sun, Shen Yu & Chi Yu

  2. Department of Otorhinolaryngology, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116027, China

    Yingxi Liu & Xiuzhen Sun

Authors
  1. Jun Zhang
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  2. Yingxi Liu
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  3. Xiuzhen Sun
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  4. Shen Yu
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  5. Chi Yu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jun Zhang.

Additional information

The project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10472025; 10672036) and the Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province, China (20032109).

The English text was polished by Yunming Chen.

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Zhang, J., Liu, Y., Sun, X. et al. Computational fluid dynamics simulations of respiratory airflow in human nasal cavity and its characteristic dimension study. Acta Mech. Sin. 24, 223–228 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10409-008-0148-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10409-008-0148-z

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