Journal article
Airway wall stiffening increases peak wall shear stress: a fluid-structure interaction study in rigid and compliant airways
Annals of biomedical engineering, Vol.38(5), pp.1836-1853
05/2010
DOI: 10.1007/s10439-010-9956-y
PMCID: PMC3034653
PMID: 20162357
Abstract
The airflow characteristics in a computed tomography (CT) based human airway bifurcation model with rigid and compliant walls are investigated numerically. An in-house three-dimensional (3D) fluid-structure interaction (FSI) method is applied to simulate the flow at different Reynolds numbers and airway wall stiffness. As the Reynolds number increases, the airway wall deformation increases and the secondary flow becomes more prominent. It is found that the peak wall shear stress on the rigid airway wall can be five times stronger than that on the compliant airway wall. When adding tethering forces to the model, we find that these forces, which produce larger airway deformation than without tethering, lead to more skewed velocity profiles in the lower branches and further reduced wall shear stresses via a larger airway lumen. This implies that pathologic changes in the lung such as fibrosis or remodeling of the airway wall-both of which can serve to restrain airway wall motion-have the potential to increase wall shear stress and thus can form a positive feed-back loop for the development of altered flow profiles and airway remodeling. These observations are particularly interesting as we try to understand flow and structural changes seen in, for instance, asthma, emphysema, cystic fibrosis, and interstitial lung disease.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Airway wall stiffening increases peak wall shear stress: a fluid-structure interaction study in rigid and compliant airways
- Creators
- Guohua Xia - Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USAMerryn H TawhaiEric A HoffmanChing-Long Lin
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Annals of biomedical engineering, Vol.38(5), pp.1836-1853
- DOI
- 10.1007/s10439-010-9956-y
- PMID
- 20162357
- PMCID
- PMC3034653
- NLM abbreviation
- Ann Biomed Eng
- ISSN
- 0090-6964
- eISSN
- 1573-9686
- Publisher
- United States
- Grant note
- R01 EB005823-01 / NIBIB NIH HHS R01-HL-064368 / NHLBI NIH HHS R01 EB005823 / NIBIB NIH HHS R01-EB-005823 / NIBIB NIH HHS S10 RR022421-01A2 / NCRR NIH HHS UL1 RR024979 / NCRR NIH HHS S10-RR-022421 / NCRR NIH HHS S10 RR022421 / NCRR NIH HHS R01 HL064368-10 / NHLBI NIH HHS R01 HL064368 / NHLBI NIH HHS
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 05/2010
- Academic Unit
- Roy J. Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering; Radiology; Mechanical Engineering; Internal Medicine
- Record Identifier
- 9984051505202771
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