Study on Nasal Deposition of Micro Particles and Its Relationship to Airflow Structure

Moisturizing and keeping clean the air that moves through the nose and get into the lungs are the core responsibilities of the turbinates in human body and respiratory system. In certain situations, inflammatory reaction of tubinates is the first sign that they come across an allergenic substance which can lead to inflammation of them but in real life having such turbinates is not quite as harmful as it sounds. To solve this problematic issue, there are a few actions that can be taken. Turbinates are bony projections which can be found on both sides of the nasal cavity. There are typically three sets of them: the inferior turbinate, which is the largest and is located closest to the nostril, the middle turbinate which is the second largest and the superior turbinate which is the smallest in size amongst Abstract: A computational model was established in order to study the pressure, velocity and particle deposition in a human nasal cavity, including: nasopharynx, main airway, nasal valve and vestibule. Coronal CT scan images of a 39 years old Malaysian female were used to produce the 3D model. The Lagrangian approach was used to find the trajectories of micro-particles for 20 L/min flow rate. The deposition rate of micro particles were evaluated and the major hot spots for the deposition of injected particles were found. On the other hand, the pressure drop and velocity magnitude of the patient were investigated and compared in this paper. It was found that the particle diameter has significant impact on deposition patterns for the micro particles. Additionally, with increase of particle diameter, micron particles experienced higher total deposition efficiency.