In silico Study on the deposition and distribution of particles in a realistic airway model with Handilaher®

¹ School of Energy and Environment, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, China
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Vic 3800, Australia

^a* Corresponding author. Tel: +86 186-2500-1504; Email: z.tong@seu.edu.cn
^b* Corresponding author. Tel: +61 040-3878-8070; Email: xudong.zhou@monash.edu

Abstract

Effective pulmonary drug delivery plays an essential role in the treatment of diseases. Drug aerosolization and inhalers play an essential role in the therapeutic effect of pulmonary diseases. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the effect of inhalers, inhalation flow rates, and particle properties on the transport and deposition of 1-19 μm particles in a realistic airway model. Computational fluid dynamics coupled with the discrete phrase model (CFD-DPM) was performed to predict the transport and deposition of inhaled particles. Good agreement in deposition mechanisms was observed with the in vivo published data, which proved the effectiveness of the numerical method in pulmonary drug delivery. Airflow structure as well as deposition pattern showed that differences in turbulence, reverse flow, and vortex formulation between the two different models are determined by the existence of inhaler geometry. Enhancing the air flow rate and particle diameter increases the particle inertial as well as the turbulence level, resulting in an uptrend in deposition fraction (DF) of the mouth-throat (MT) region. In conclusion, this in silico method is valuable to help understand the in vitro - in vivo correlation (IVIVC) of pulmonary drug delivery.