Vincent Ruwet’s research while affiliated with von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics and other places

Accurate modeling of air flow and aerosol transport in the alveolated airways is essential for quantitative predictions of pulmonary aerosol deposition. However, experimental validation of such modeling studies has been scarce. The objective of this study is to validate CFD predictions of flow field and particle trajectory with experiments within a scaled-up model of alveolated airways. Steady flow (Re = 0.13) of silicone oil was captured by particle image velocimetry (PIV), and the trajectories of 0.5 mm and 1.2 mm spherical iron beads (representing 0.7 to 14.6 mum aerosol in vivo) were obtained by particle tracking velocimetry (PTV). At twelve selected cross sections, the velocity profiles obtained by CFD matched well with those by PIV (within 1.7% on average). The CFD predicted trajectories also matched well with PTV experiments. These results showed that air flow and aerosol transport in models of human alveolated airways can be simulated by CFD techniques with reasonable accuracy.

L'objectif de cette communication est l'étude de deux micro-écoulements différents au moyen d'un système de micro-PIV non inversé. Ces écoulements diffèrent entre eux par les aspects suivants: Le premier, un écoulement pulmonaire, est représentatif d'un flux stationnaire confiné. Le second, la formation de gouttelettes par un capillaire contrôlé par un cristal piézoélectrique, est représentatif d'un écoulement périodique à surface libre. La faisabilité de ce type de mesure est évaluée en mettant l'accent sur le fait que ces expérimentations ont été menées sur des micro-écoulements courbes tridimensionnels.