Voxel-based simulation of nasal airflow during a sniff

Shinya Kimura, Yusuke Kimura, Toshihiro Sera, Kenji Ono, Gaku Tanaka

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    To establish a new simplified approach to quantify the impact of surgical intervention on nasal airflow, we used voxel-based computational fluid dynamics simulations to analyze nasal airflow under unsteady flow conditions mimicking a sniff, which involves brief inhalation accompanied by rapid acceleration. The time-transient distribution of the flow rate in the coronal cross-section was investigated to validate the results of this voxel method against those of conventional boundary-fitted method. Despite a simple approach using coarse voxel grids, the voxel method accurately reproduced rapid changes in flow distribution during a sniff. We also found that correctly modeling rapid changes in the characteristic flow structure in a nasal cavity (including a jet posterior to the nasal valve and a recirculating flow in the upper anterior region of the cavity) is important for reproducing the unsteady flow distribution during a sniff. Thus, the voxel-based simulations can be used to assess the dynamics of unsteady nasal airflows.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)37-43
    Number of pages7
    JournalTransactions of Japanese Society for Medical and Biological Engineering
    Volume56
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jan 1 2018

    All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

    • Biomedical Engineering

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