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Effect of swirling flow and particle-release pattern on drug delivery to human tracheobronchial airways

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Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the effect of swirling flow on particle deposition in a realistic human airway. A computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model was utilized for the simulation of oral inhalation and particle transport patterns, considering the k-ω turbulence model. Lagrangian particle tracking was used to track the particles’ trajectories. A normal breathing condition (30 L/min) was applied, and two-micron particles were injected into the mouth, considering swirling flow to the oral inhalation airflow. Different cases were considered for releasing the particles, which evaluated the impacts of various parameters on the deposition efficiency (DE), including the swirl intensity, injection location and pattern of the particle. The work's novelty is applying several injection locations and diameters simultaneously. The results show that the swirling flow enhances the particle deposition efficiency (20–40%) versus no-swirl flow, especially in the mouth. However, releasing particles inside the mouth, or injecting them randomly with a smaller injection diameter (dinj) reduced DE in swirling flow condition, about 50 to 80%. Injecting particles inside the mouth can decrease DE by about 20%, and releasing particles with smaller dinj leads to 50% less DE in swirling flow. In conclusion, it is indicated that the airflow condition is an important parameter for a reliable drug delivery, and it is more beneficial to keep the inflow uniform and avoid swirling flow.

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Abbreviations

d p :

Particle diameter (m)

µ :

Dynamic viscosity (kg/m s)

d inj :

Injection diameter (m)

ρ f :

Fluid density (kg/m3)

f :

Drag coefficient

ρ p :

Particle density (kg/m3)

F D :

Drag force (N)

τ ij :

Reynolds stress tensor

m p :

Particle mass (kg)

τ p :

Particle relaxation (response) time (s)

P :

Pressure (Pa)

υ f :

Kinetic molecular viscosity (µf/ρf)

R 0 :

Inlet radius (m)

υ t :

Kinetic eddy viscosity (µf/ρf)

SN:

Swirl number

t :

Time (s)

V a :

Axial velocity (m/s)

V f :

Fluid velocity (m/s)

V f :

Fluid volume (m3)

V p :

Particle volume (m3

DE:

Deposition efficiency

V p :

Particle velocity (m/s)

DPM:

Discrete phase model

V t :

Tangential velocity (m/s)

EsE:

Escaped efficiency

TDD:

Targeted drug delivery

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The authors received no financial support for this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Imam Khomeini, Behshahr Branch, Technical and Vocational University (TVU), Mazandaran, Iran

    Mohammad Hasan Taheri

  2. School of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

    Oveis Pourmehran

  3. School of Engineering, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Victoria, Australia

    Mohammad Mohsen Sarafraz

  4. Biomedical MRI and MoSAIC, Department of Imaging and Pathology, KU Leuven, Leuven-3000, Belgium

    Keveh Ahookhosh

  5. Institute of Computational Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Munich, Germany

    Ali Farnoud

  6. School of Aerospace Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

    Xinguang Cui

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  1. Mohammad Hasan Taheri
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  2. Oveis Pourmehran
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  3. Mohammad Mohsen Sarafraz
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  4. Keveh Ahookhosh
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Correspondence to Xinguang Cui.

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Taheri, M.H., Pourmehran, O., Sarafraz, M.M. et al. Effect of swirling flow and particle-release pattern on drug delivery to human tracheobronchial airways. Biomech Model Mechanobiol 20, 2451–2469 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10237-021-01518-5

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