Velocity Mapping of Gasflow in the Upper Airways of a Lung Model for Validation of Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulations

Guilhem Jean Collier¹, Jim M. Wild¹, George Oates², Yongmann Chung²

We demonstrate that phase contrast velocimetry technique can be used to assess velocity maps of fluid flow that mimic breathing conditions of airflow in a geometry model of the upper airways derived from CT data sets. The experiments were done with two hyperplarized gases (helium-3 and xenon-129) and water. The results were compared to computational fluids dynamics simulations performed with the same model. A good agreement was found, specially with H₂O, reaching a resolution high enough to obtain flow patterns in the third generations of the lung model.