Characteristic size research of human nasal cavity and the respiratory airflow CFD analysis

Abstract

To study the airflow distribution in human nasal cav-ity during respiration and the characteristic parame-ters for nasal structure, thirty three-dimensional, anatomically accurate representations of adult nasal cavity models were reconstructed based on processed tomography images collected from normal people. The airflow fields in nasal cavities were simulated using the fluid dynamics with the finite element soft-ware ANSYS. The results showed that the difference of human nasal cavity structure led to varying airflow distribution in the nasal cavities and the main airflow passed through the common nasal meatus. The nasal resistance in the regions of nasal valve and nasal ves-tibule accounted for more than a half of overall resis-tance. The characteristic model of nasal cavity was extracted based on the characteristic points and di-mensions deducted from the original models. It showed that either the geometric structure or the air-flow field of the two kinds of model was similar. The characteristic dimensions were the characteristic pa-rameters of nasal cavity that properly represented the original model in research for nasal cavity.