Pharmaceutical aerosols deposition patterns from a Dry Powder Inhaler: Euler Lagrangian prediction and validation.

This study uses Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to predict, analyze and validate the deposition patterns in a human lung for a Budesonide drug delivered from the Novolizer Dry Powder Inhaler device. We used a test case of known deposition patterns to validate our computational Euler Lagrangian-based deposition predictions. Two different lung models are used: (i) a basic ring-less trachea model and (ii) an advanced Human Zygote5 model. Unlike earlier attempts, the current simulations do not include the device in the computational domain. This greatly reduces the computational effort. To mimic the device, we model the inlet particle jet stream from the device as a spray entering the mouth in a conical fashion. Deposition studies in the various lung regions were performed. We were able to computationally predict and then demonstrate the enhanced deposition in the tracheal and first generation rings/ridges. The enhanced vorticity creation due to the ring structure and the geometrical design contributes to larger deposition in the Zygote5 model. These are in accord with existing data, unlike the ring-less model. Our validated results indicate the need to (i) introduce the ridges in the experimental casts and the CFD surface meshes to be anatomically consistent and obtain physiologically consistent depositions; (ii) introduce a factor to account for the recirculating lighter particles in empirical models.

Application of computational fluid dynamics techniques to blood pumps.

Present-day computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques can be used to analyze the behavior of fluid flow in a variety of pumps. CFD can be a powerful tool during the design stage for rapid virtual prototyping of different designs, analyzing performance parameters, and making design improvements. Computational flow solutions provide information such as the location and size of stagnation zones and the local shear rate. These parameters can be correlated to the extent of hemolysis and thrombus formation and are critical to the success of a blood pump. CFD-ACE, an advanced commercial CFD code developed by CFD Research Corporation, has been applied to fluid flows in rotary machines, such as axial flow pumps and inducers. Preprocessing and postprocessing tools for efficient grid generation and advanced graphical flow visualization are integrated seamlessly with CFD-ACE. The code has structured multiblock grid capability, non-Newtonian fluid treatment, a variety of turbulence models, and an Eulerian-Langrangian particle tracking model. CFD-ACE has been used successfully to study the flow characteristics in an axial flow blood pump. An unstructured flow solver that greatly automates the process of grid generation and speeds up the flow simulation is under development.