Effects of Inhalation Flow Rate on Particle Deposition and Flow Structure in a Model of Tracheobronchial Airway

Due to the prevalence of respiratory diseases, effective drug delivery to the lungs is important for researchers. The main objective of current study is investigating the transfer and deposition of micron-sized particles (1–10 µm) as well as airflow structure at different respiratory flow rates (i.e. 30, 60, and 90 L/min) in a realistic airway model according to the CT images of a 48-year-old healthy female. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used for simulation of particle transport and deposition in an airway model that includes mouth-throat zone, trachea region, and bronchial airways up to the fourth generation and the results were compared with available data in the literature. To investigate airflow structure, velocity contours with streamlines at different regions are obtained. Deposition fraction (DF) is used to present the results of particle deposition pattern. The results show that mouth-throat region and trachea filters out largest inhaled aerosols, which lead to highest particle deposition fractions for these regions. In addition, increasing the inhalation flow rate, increases turbulence level and particles inertia which result in higher deposition fractions.