AAAR 31st Annual Conference
October 8-12, 2012
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Motion of Ellipsoidal Fibers in Human Tracheobronchial Tree
LIN TIAN, Goodarz Ahmadi, Philip K. Hopke, Yung-Sung Cheng, Clarkson University
Abstract Number: 638 Working Group: Health Related Aerosols
Abstract Fate of the inhaled asbestos fibers has been of considerable research focus during the past few decades due to its malignant pathological response in living beings. Extensive earlier studies, has been identified links between the inhalation of asbestos and the occurrence of lung cancer; however, details of the pathological correlation are still to be uncovered. The understanding is further hampered by the lack of tools to reveal the details of motion of the asbestos fibers and their interaction with the airflow within the tracheobroncial airways. This computational work is intended to provide a better understanding of the motions of elongated fibers in the human lung, so that the fate of these fibers can be assessed. System of coupled nonlinear equations governing the fibers translational and rotational motions were described and solved numerically. Correlations between the deposition pattern, fiber characteristics, breathing conditions, and airway morphology in human upper tracheobronchial airways were derived. The simulation results were compared with the experimental data, and good agreement was found.