Deposition of Submicron Charged Spherical Particles in the Trachea of the Human Airways

H.O. Åkerstedt[1]
[1]Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden
Published in 2012

This paper presents a numerical study of the deposition of submicron charged spherical particles caused by convection, Brownian and turbulent diffusion in a pipe with a smooth wall and with a cartilaginous ring wall structure (see figure). The model is supposed to describe deposition of charged particles in generation 0 (trachea) of the human lung.The problem is defined by solving the fluid flow problem with the aid of a low-Reynolds number k-epsilon model combined with a diffusion equation for the Brownian motion and Poisson\'s equation for the electrostatic field. Deposition results using COMSOL Multiphysics are compared with an analytic solution for the case of a fully-developed turbulent flow in an airway with a smooth wall.