סמינר מחקר בחוג להנדסה ביו רפואית

Prof. James Grotberg

Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan
 

MULTIPHASE FLOW IN THE LUNG

Our lab has been actively pursuing a number of problems involving multiphase flow in the lung. This talk will be a review of our efforts in surfactant and liquid delivery into the lung, airway closure, liquid plug propagation and airway reopening, respiratory crackles and epithelial injury, and liquid ventilation. The disease settings are ARDS, asthma, cystic fibrosis, surfactant deficiency, and congestive heart failure. CFD is used extensively with comparisons to our own experiments and available literature. Computations give us a way of understanding critical fluid mechanical phenomena for Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids such as: liquid plug splitting at airway bifurcations with the influence of gravity; the stability of a liquid film coating a tube; the combined effects of cyclic stretch and interface motion over alveolar cells. We are also gaining insight into the levels of stresses on the epithelial cells of airways and alveoli which may cause damage, provoke the release of bioactive molecules, and initiate and sustain inflammation.

Electrical Engineering Building, Room 011