A Numerical Investigation of Regional Fiber Deposition in a Realistic Nasal Cavity

In this paper, the motion and deposition of micro fibers in different regions of a realistic human nasal airway were studied using a computational modeling approach. The airflow field in the nasal cavity was simulated by solving the Navier-Stokes and continuity equations. The coupled translational and rotation motion of the fibers were analyzed by a Lagrangian approach assuming one-way coupling. The fibers were assumed to be ellipsoids and a computer code was developed for solving the coupled translational and rotational equations of motion of the ellipsoidal fiber. A large number of fibers were injected at the nostril and the deposition pattern and deposition fraction (DF) of the fibers in different regions of the nasal cavity were evaluated for different breathing rates, various fiber diameters and different fiber aspect ratios. The simulation results for ellipsoidal fibers obtained by solving the coupled translational and rotational equations were compared with those obtained by solving only the translational equations of equivalent spherical particles with a shape factor, which were used in some earlier works.