Voxel-based modeling of airflow in the human nasal cavity

Abstract

This paper describes the simulation of airflow in human nasal airways using voxel-based modeling characterized by robust, automatic, and objective grid generation. Computed tomography scans of a healthy adult nose are used to reconstruct 3D virtual models of the nasal airways. Voxel-based simulations of restful inspiratory flow are then performed using various mesh sizes to determine the level of granularity required to adequately resolve the airflow. For meshes with close voxel spacings, the model successfully reconstructs the nasal structure and predicts the overall pressure drop through the nasal cavity.

Keywords:

• Computational fluid dynamics
• voxel-based simulation
• human nasal cavity

Additional information

Funding

The present study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 26630059 and JSPS Bilateral Program. This research used computational resources of the K computer provided by the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science through the HPCI System Research project (Project ID:hp160186).