An image-based computational model of oscillatory flow in the proximal part of the tracheobronchial trees

Abstract

A computational model of an oscillatory laminar flow of an incompressible Newtonian fluid has been carried out in the proximal part of huaman tracheobronchial trees, either normal or with a strongly stenosed right main bronchus. After acquisition with a multislice spiral CT, the thoracic images are processed to reconstruct the geometry of the trachea and the six first brinchus generations and to virtually travel inside this duct network. The facetisation associated with the three-dimensional reconsturction of the tracheobronchial tree is improved to get a computation-adapted surface triangulation, which leads to a volumic mesh composed of tetrahedra. The Navier-Stokes equations associated with the classical boundary conditions and different values of the flow dimensionless parameters are solved using the finite element method. The airways are supposed to be rigid during rest breathing. The flow distribution among the set of bronchi is determined during the respiratory cycle. Cycle reproducibility and mesh size effects on the numerical results are examined. Helpful qualitative data are provided rather than accurate quantitative results in the context of multimodelling, from inmage processing to numerical simulations