Applied Maths Seminar: Grotberg -- Multiphase flow in the lung

Wednesday, 15 August 2012, at 2pm 

James B. Grotberg, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of
Surgery, University of Michigan 

MULTIPHASE FLOW IN THE LUNG 

Abstract: Our lab has been actively pursuing a number of problems involving multiphase
flow in the lung.  This talk will be a review of our efforts in surfactant and liquid
delivery into the lung, airway closure, airway reopening, related aerosol deposition
phenomena and alveolar dynamics.  The disease settings are acute respiratory distress
syndrome (ARDS), asthma, cystic fibrosis, surfactant deficiency, and congestive heart
failure.  Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used extensively with comparisons to our
own experiments and available literature.  Computations give us a way of understanding
critical fluid-mechanical phenomena for Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids such as:
liquid plug splitting at airway bifurcations with the influence of gravity; initiation
of plug motion from a critical yield pressure drop when it has a yield stress, as in
mucus; the deposition of local aerosols during airway closure and reopening on the
dynamic interface of that airway; the stability of a liquid film, or bi-layer film, in
an airway geometry to model the serous and mucus layers during airway closure; the
combined effects of cyclic stretch and interface motion over alveolar cells.  CFD also
gives us insight into the levels of stresses on the epithelial cells of airways and
alveoli which may cause damage, provoke the release of bioactive molecules, and initiate
and sustain inflammation.  

Lecture Theatre room 273, Carslaw building 

queries: Chris Bertram (9351-3646, c.bertram@sydney.edu.au)