Airway geometry and inhalation effort comparisons in a narrowed and recovered airway tree associated with acute asthma

The computational model was created for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis which provides details on the geometry and airflow dynamics such as the pressure drop. A comparison between the two models was undertaken to determine the disparities in the inhalation efforts and the airway branch diameters caused by physiological changes in the airway trees. It was found that in general the right side of the reconstructed airway tree is larger in diameter than the left side. Additionally the right airway exhibited greater dilation from the acute-asthma model to the recovered model in comparison with the left airway especially from the fifth generation onwards. The required pressure difference at the inlet for the AA-model was 5.98 Pa, which is nearly twice the value for the recovered model (3.73 Pa).