scholarly journals Tracheal stenosis: a flow dynamics study

2007 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 1178-1184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Brouns ◽  
Santhosh T. Jayaraju ◽  
Chris Lacor ◽  
Johan De Mey ◽  
Marc Noppen ◽  
...  

Patients referred for treatment of tracheal stenosis typically are asymptomatic until critical narrowing of the airway occurs, which then requires immediate intervention. To understand how tracheal stenosis affects local pressure drops and explore how a dramatic increase in pressure drop could possibly be detected at an early stage, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study was undertaken. We assessed flow patterns and pressure drops over tracheal stenoses artificially inserted into a realistic three-dimensional upper airway model derived from multislice computed tomography images obtained in healthy men. Solving the Navier-Stokes equations (with a Yang-shih k-ε turbulence model) for different degrees of tracheal constriction located approximately one tracheal diameter below the glottis, the simulated pressure drop over the stenosis (ΔP) was seen to dramatically increase only when well over 70% of the tracheal lumen was obliterated. At 30 l/min, ΔP increased from 7 Pa for a 50% stenosis to, respectively, 46 and 235 Pa for 80% and 90% stenosis. The pressure-flow relationship in the entire upper airway model (between mouth and end of trachea) in the flow range 0–60 l/min showed a power law relationship with best-fit flow exponent of 1.77 in the absence of stenosis. The exponent became 1.92 and 2.00 in the case of 60% and 85% constriction, respectively. The present simulations confirm that the overall pressure drop at rest is only affected in case of severe constriction, and the simulated flow dependence of pressure drop suggests a means of detecting stenosis at a precritical stage.

2011 ◽  
Vol 55-57 ◽  
pp. 343-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Gang Luan ◽  
Hai Ou Sun

In this article, computational fluid dynamics(CFD) method is used to predict the effect of blade numbers on the pressure drop of axial cyclone separators. A three-dimensional model is built to acquire the resistance of axial cyclone separators with different blade numbers. The flow field inside cyclone separators is calculated using 3D Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations. And turbulence model is used to simulate the Reynold stress. Also pressure drop of cyclone separators with different blade numbers is expressed as a function of different inlet velocities. At the same inlet velocity with increasing the blade numbers, pressure drops of cyclones reduce greatly. And changing the blade number of cyclone separator is an effective method to improve its resistance performance.


Author(s):  
REZA TABE ◽  
ROOHOLLAH RAFEE ◽  
MOHAMMAD SADEGH VALIPOUR ◽  
GOODARZ AHMADI

In this study, a realistic respiratory airway model extending from oral to the end of the trachea including all the key details of the passage was produced. A series of CT scan images were used to generate the topological data of airway cross-sections that were used to generate the computational model, as well as the three-dimensional (3D) printed model of the passage for experimental study. The airflow velocity field and pressure drop in the airway for different breathing rates of 5, 7.5, 10, and 12.5[Formula: see text]L/min were investigated numerically (by laminar and transition models) and experimentally. The velocity distributions, pressure variation, and streamlines along the oral–trachea airway model were studied. The maximum pressure drop was shown to occur in the narrowest part of the larynx region. It was also concluded that the laryngeal jet could significantly influence the airway flow patterns in the trachea. A comparison between the numerical results and experimental data showed that the transition [Formula: see text]–kl–[Formula: see text] model can give better predictions of pressure losses, especially for flow rates higher than 10[Formula: see text]L/min. The simulation results for the velocity profiles in the trachea were also compared with the available particle image velocimetry (PIV) data and earlier simulations. Despite inter-personal variability and difference in the flow regime, the qualitative agreement was found.


2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. V. Rathish Kumar ◽  
T. Yamaguchi ◽  
H. Liu ◽  
R. Himeno

Abstract Unsteady flow dynamics in a doubly constricted vessel is analyzed by using a time accurate Finite Volume solution of three dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Computational experiments are carried out for various values of Reynolds number in order to assess the criticality of multiple mild constrictions in series and also to bring out the subtle 3D features like vortex formation. Studies reveal that pressure drop across a series of mild constrictions can get physiologically critical. Further this pressure drop is found to be sensitive to the spacing between the constrictions and also to the oscillatory nature of the inflow profile.


2015 ◽  
Vol 767 ◽  
pp. 364-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Lubin ◽  
S. Glockner

AbstractThe scope of this work is to present and discuss the results obtained from simulating three-dimensional plunging breaking waves by solving the Navier–Stokes equations, in air and water. Recent progress in computational capabilities has allowed us to run fine three-dimensional simulations, giving us the opportunity to study for the first time fine vortex filaments generated during the early stage of the wave breaking phenomenon. To date, no experimental observations have been made in laboratories, and these structures have only been visualised in rare documentary footage (e.g. BBC 2009 South Pacific. Available on YouTube, 7BOhDaJH0m4). These fine coherent structures are three-dimensional streamwise vortical tubes, like vortex filaments, connecting the splash-up and the main tube of air, elongated in the main flow direction. The first part of the paper is devoted to the presentation of the model and numerical methods. The air entrainment occurring when waves break is then carefully described. Thanks to the high resolution of the grid, these fine elongated structures are simulated and explained.


Author(s):  
Zhenjia Yu ◽  
Xiaoyong Yang ◽  
Xiaoli Yu ◽  
Jie Wang

High temperature gas-cooled reactor with direct helium turbine cycle is based on the closed Brayton cycle. Its outstanding feature is the high efficiency of power generation. Pervious researches showed that recuperator was the key component to promote the cycle’s efficiency. And pressure drops in components were unavoidable in actual projects and had significant influence on cycle efficiency. A dimensionless model was proposed to analyze cycle’s features of HTGR coupled with gas turbine. The parameters’ effect on cycle’s efficiency was analyzed, with full consideration of the frictional and local pressure drops respectively. Under the restriction of materials and state-of-art of technologies, it showed that the cycle’s efficiency depended on compression ratio, recuperator’s effectiveness and pressure drops of components. However the pressure drop ratios of different components were inherently connected due to the closed cycle. Furthermore pressure drops inside the recuperator were also the function of effectiveness of the heat transfer based on the Reynolds analogy. Therefore cycle’s efficiency just depended on recuperator’s effectiveness with fixed compression ratio. So there existed optimal recuperator’s effectiveness and maximum cycle’s efficiency, which varied with the pressure ratio and other parameters as temperature ratio. The calculation also indicated that the pressure drop in pipes was close to that in heat exchangers. That was, the local pressure drop and frictional pressure drop should be considered respectively, and the local pressure drop made quite large reduction of cycle’s efficiency. The result also showed that local pressure drop had great influence on parameters such as optimal compression ratio and recuperator’s effectiveness.


Author(s):  
Zurwa Khan ◽  
Reza Tafreshi ◽  
Matthew Franchek ◽  
Karolos Grigoriadis

Modeling two-phase flow across orifices is critical in optimizing orifice design and fluid’s operation in countless architectures and machineries. While flow across different orifice geometries has been extensively studied for air-water flow, simulations and experiments on other two-phase flow combinations are limited. Since every fluid mixture has its own physical properties, such as densities, viscosities and surface tensions, the effect of these properties on the local pressure drops across the orifices may differ. This study aims to investigate the effect of different fluid combinations on the pressure drop across sharp-edged orifices with varying gas mass fractions, orifice thicknesses, and area ratios. A numerical model was developed and validated using experimental data for air-water flow. Then, the model was extended to include various gas-liquid flows including gasoil, argon-diesel and fuel oil. The local pressure drops were then estimated and compared with the existing empirical correlations. The developed model presents a unified approach to measure pressure drop across orifices for different fluid mixtures with different geometries and gas-liquid compositions, unlike existing empirical correlations which are applicable for specific orifice geometries. The results showed that Morris correlation, Simpson correlation, and Chisholm correlation are more appropriate for gasoil, argon-diesel and fuel oil mixtures, respectively. They also yielded that for all fluid combinations, increasing orifice thickness and area ratio led to a decrease in local pressure drop, while increasing gas mass fraction led to an increase in local pressure drop. This revealed that, despite having similar responses to changes in orifice geometries and gas fractions, unlike the assumption made by previous works on air-water flow, no empirical correlation is able to predict pressure drops for all flow mixtures, while the presented numerical model can efficiently determine the local pressure drop for all combinations of flow mixtures, orifice geometries and gas mass fractions.


Author(s):  
F. J. Hong ◽  
P. Cheng ◽  
H. Ge ◽  
Teck Joo Goh

In this paper, a numerical simulation is carried to study pressure drop and heat transfer in a fractal tree-like microchannel net heat sink of 10mm×12.5mm×0.5mm in dimensions. The numerical result is obtained by solving three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations and energy equation, taking into consideration conjugate heat transfer in the microchannel walls. A comparison of fractal tree-like microchannel net heat sink with 6 branch levels to parallel microchannels heat sink, with respect to the pressure drop, thermal resistance and temperature uniformity, was also performed under the condition of the same heat sink dimensions. The results indicates that for a mass flow rate of water less than 0.00175kg/s, the fractal tree-like microchannel is much better than parallel channel heat sink with respect to all of three aspects. Therefore, the fractal tree-like microchannels net heat sink using water as the coolant is promising to be used in the future electronic cooling industry.


1988 ◽  
Vol 187 ◽  
pp. 573-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. E. Ralph

Pressure drops occurring in oscillatory viscous flows in wavy-walled tubes have been studied experimentally, for Reynolds numbers up to 1500 and Strouhal numbers in the range 0.005 to 0.02, and by numerical solution of the Navier-Stokes equations, for Reynolds numbers up to 200 and Strouhal numbers between 0.005 and 0.1. Agreement was good for values of the mean modulus of the pressure drop at lower Strouhal numbers and for values of the mean power dissipation at all Strouhal numbers.Numerical solutions have shown that the pressure drop may vary non-sinusoidally, even though the imposed variation in flow rate is sinusoidal. This cannot be explained by the nonlinearity of the steady pressure drop-flow rate relationship, and arises because the velocity field is not quasi-steady. In particular energy may be stored in strong vortices formed during the acceleration phase of the flow cycle, and partially returned to the main flow later. The peak pressure drops in such flows, which are associated with the formation of these vortices, can be almost twice as large as values predicted by adding the appropriate quasi-steady and unsteady inertial contributions. This finding is important in the wider context of unsteady conduit flow.The dependences of the mean modulus of the pressure drop and the mean power dissipation on the Strouhal number and frequency parameter were investigated in detail numerically for two geometries. It was not possible to reduce either dependence to a function of a single parameter. The ‘equivalent’ straight-walled tube for power dissipation was found to have a smaller bore than that for pressure drop, leading to smaller ‘phase angles’ than might have been expected at large values of the frequency parameter. This is because as the pressure drop becomes increasingly dominated by unsteady inertia, there remain relatively large recirculations in which energy is dissipated.


2002 ◽  
Vol 124 (4) ◽  
pp. 1053-1056 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tzung K. Hsiai ◽  
Sung Kwon Cho and ◽  
Joon Mo Yang ◽  
Xing Yang and ◽  
Yu-Chong Tai ◽  
...  

When the particle is in the order of microns, flow through the small opening produces a large velocity gradient, leading to high viscous dissipation. Understanding the flow field is critical in determining the power requirement. In this paper, we studied water flow through filters fabricated by micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) techniques. The pressure drop calculated by a three-dimensional numerical code of the Navier-Stokes equations is in a resonable agreement with the experimental data if the diameter and the side wall profile of the holes are measured with high accuracy.


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