Helium–Oxygen Mixture Model for Particle Transport in CT-Based Upper Airways

Mohammad S. Islam, YuanTong Gu, Arpad Farkas, Gunther Paul and Suvash C. Saha
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Mohammad S. Islam: School of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), 15 Broadway, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia
YuanTong Gu: School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia
Arpad Farkas: Centre for Energy Research, Konkoly-Thege M. Street 29-33, 1121 Budapest, Hungary
Gunther Paul: Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4810, Australia
Suvash C. Saha: School of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), 15 Broadway, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 10, 1-19

Abstract: The knowledge of respiratory particle transport in the extra-thoracic pathways is essential for the estimation of lung health-risk and optimization of targeted drug delivery. The published literature reports that a significant fraction of the inhaled aerosol particles are deposited in the upper airways, and available inhalers can deliver only a small amount of drug particles to the deeper airways. To improve the targeted drug delivery efficiency to the lungs, it is important to reduce the drug particle deposition in the upper airways. This study aims to minimize the unwanted aerosol particle deposition in the upper airways by employing a gas mixture model for the aerosol particle transport within the upper airways. A helium–oxygen (heliox) mixture (80% helium and 20% oxygen) model is developed for the airflow and particle transport as the heliox mixture is less dense than air. The mouth–throat and upper airway geometry are extracted from CT-scan images. Finite volume based ANSYS Fluent (19.2) solver is used to simulate the airflow and particle transport in the upper airways. Tecplot software and MATLAB code are employed for the airflow and particle post-processing. The simulation results show that turbulence intensity for heliox breathing is lower than in the case of air-breathing. The less turbulent heliox breathing eventually reduces the deposition efficiency (DE) at the upper airways than the air-breathing. The present study, along with additional patient-specific investigation, could improve the understanding of particle transport in upper airways, which may also increase the efficiency of aerosol drug delivery.

Keywords: targeted drug delivery; helium–oxygen mixture; particle transport; particle deposition; mouth–throat model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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