Inhalable particles deposition in the human respiratory system is the main cause of many respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. It plays an important role in related disease prevention and treatment through establishing computer or external entity models to study rules of particle deposition. The paper summarized and analyzed the present research results of various inhalable particle deposition models of upper respiratory tract and pulmonary area, and expounded the application in the areas of disease inducement analysis, drug inhale treatment etc. Based on the review, the paper puts forward the problems and application limitations of present research, especially pointing out future emphasis in development directions. It will have a value of reference guidance for further systematic and in-depth study on the inhalable particle deposition simulation, experiment and application.
A solid-liquid two-phase finite element model of articular cartilage and a microscopic finite element model of chondrocytes were established using the finite element software COMSOL in this study. The purpose of the study is to investigate the mechanics environment and the liquid flow field of the host cartilage chondrocytes in each layer by multi-scale method, under physiological load, with the different elastic modulus of artificial cartilage to repair cartilage defect. The simulation results showed that the uniform elastic modulus of artificial cartilage had different influences on the microenvironment of different layer chondrocytes. With the increase of the elastic modulus of artificial cartilage, the stress of the shallow surface layer and the intermediate layer chondrocytes increased and the stress of deep layer chondrocytes decreased. The flow field direction of the middle layer and the bottom layer of cartilage can also be changed by artificial cartilage implantation, as well as the ways of nourishment supply of the middle layer and underlying chondrocytes change. A barrier to underlying chondrocytes nutrition supply may be caused by this, thus resulting in the uncertainty of the repair results. With cross-scale finite element model simulation analysis of chondrocytes, we can quantitatively evaluate the mechanical environment of chondrocytes in each layer of the host cartilage. It is helpful to assess the clinical effect of cartilage defect reparation more accurately.
The diagnostic and therapeutic paradigm for lower extremity arteriosclerosis obliterans (ASO) is undergoing a fundamental shift from conventional morphology-based assessment toward functional evaluation and predictive medicine. Numerical simulation techniques that integrate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis (FEA), grounded in patient-specific imaging data, have emerged as a central driving force of this transformation. This review systematically elucidates how these approaches enable the construction of vascular “digital twins” to achieve precise quantification of the hemodynamic environment associated with ASO lesions, virtual monitoring of disease progression, and preoperative optimization of therapeutic strategies. Particular emphasis is placed on the critical role of numerical simulation in supporting clinical decision-making, such as evaluating the necessity of interventional treatment and predicting the mechanical responses of endovascular devices. Furthermore, the potential, current challenges, and future directions of numerical simulation in advancing personalized and precision management of ASO are comprehensively discussed.
The inhalation and deposition of particles in human pulmonary acinus region can cause lung diseases. Numerical simulation of the deposition of inhaled particles in the pulmonary acinus region has offered an effective gateway to the prevention and clinical treatment of these diseases. Based on some important affecting factors such as pulmonary acinar models, model motion, breathing patterns, particulate characteristics, lung diseases and ages, the present research results of numerical simulation in human pulmonary acinus region were summarized and analyzed, and the future development directions were put forward in this paper, providing new insights into the further research and application of the numerical simulation in the pulmonary acinus region.
External support stent is a potential means for restricting the deformation and reducing wall stress of the vein graft, thereby improving the long-term patency of the graft in coronary artery bypass surgery. However, there still lacks a theoretical reference for choosing the size of stent based on the diameter of graft. Taking the VEST (venous external support) stent currently used in the clinical practice as the object of study, we constructed three models of VEST stents with different diameters and coupled them respectively to a model of the great saphenous vein graft, and numerically simulated the expansion-contraction process of the vein graft under the constraint of the stents to quantitatively evaluate the influence of stent size on the radial deformation and wall stress of the vein graft. The results showed that while the stent with a small diameter had a high restrictive effect in comparison with larger stents, it led to more severe concentration of wall stress and sharper changes in radial deformation along the axis of the graft, which may have adverse influence on the graft. In order to solve the aforementioned problems, we ameliorated the design of the stent by means of changing the cross-sectional shape of the thick and thin alloy wires from circle into rectangle and square, respectively, while keeping the cross-sectional areas of alloy wires and stent topology unchanged. Further numerical simulations demonstrated that the ameliorated stent evidently reduced the degrees of wall stress concentration and abrupt changes in radial deformation, which may help improve the biomechanical environment of the graft while maintaining the restrictive role of the stent.
Computational fluid dynamics was used to investigate the effect of the pathogenesis of membranous obstruction of inferior vena cava of Budd-Chiari syndrome with various angles between right hepatic vein and inferior vena cava. Mimics software was used to reconstruct the models from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) angiograms of inferior vena cava, right hepatic vein, middle hepatic vein and left hepatic vein, and 3DMAX was used to construct the models of 30°, 60°, 90° and 120° angles between right hepatic vein and inferior vena cava, which was based on the reconstructed models.The model was conducted with clinical parameters in terms of wall shear stress distribution, static pressure distribution and blood velocity. The results demonstrated that the differences between wall shear stress and static pressure had statistical significance with various angles between right hepatic vein and inferior vena cava by SPSS. The pathogenesis of membranous obstruction of inferior vena cava had a correlation with the angles between right hepatic vein and inferior vena cava.
The implantable miniaturized axial blood pump works at a high rotational speed, which increases the risk of blood damage. In this article, we aimed to reduce the possibility of hemolysis and thrombosis by designing a two-stage axial blood pump. Under the operation conditions of flow rate 5 L/min and outlet pressure of 100 mm Hg, we carried out the numerical simulation on the two-stage and single-stage blood pumps to compare the hemolysis and platelet activation state. The results turned out that the hemolysis index of two-stage axial blood pump was better while the platelet activation state was worse than those of single stage design. On the index of hemolysis level and platelet activation state, the design of the two-stage pump with the low and high-head impeller combination was better than the two-stage pump with the equal heads, or the high and low-head impeller combination. In terms of reducing the risk of blood damage for implantable miniaturized axial blood pump, the research result can provide some theoretical basis and new design ideas.
Due to their diverse types, complex causes, high incidence, and difficult treatment, lung diseases have become major killers threatening human life and health, and some lung diseases have a significant impact on alveolar morphology and histology. Numerical simulation of alveolar mechanical response, alveolar flow field information, multiphase flow, and material transport based on computational fluid dynamics is of great significance for lung disease diagnosis, clinical treatment, and in vitro experiments. Starting from the simplification and pathological differences of geometric and mechanical models, this paper analyzes and summarizes the conditions and application scenarios of the airflow dynamics calculation method in pulmonary alveoli, to provide a reference for further simulation and application of the alveolar region.
The current finite element analysis of vascular stent expansion does not take into account the effect of the stent release pose on the expansion results. In this study, stent and vessel model were established by Pro/E. Five kinds of finite element assembly models were constructed by ABAQUS, including 0 degree without eccentricity model, 3 degree without eccentricity model, 5 degree without eccentricity model, 0 degree axial eccentricity model and 0 degree radial eccentricity model. These models were divided into two groups of experiments for numerical simulation with respect to angle and eccentricity. The mechanical parameters such as foreshortening rate, radial recoil rate and dog boning rate were calculated. The influence of angle and eccentricity on the numerical simulation was obtained by comparative analysis. Calculation results showed that the residual stenosis rates were 38.3%, 38.4%, 38.4%, 35.7% and 38.2% respectively for the 5 models. The results indicate that the pose has less effect on the numerical simulation results so that it can be neglected when the accuracy of the result is not highly required, and the basic model as 0 degree without eccentricity model is feasible for numerical simulation.
A three-dimensional (3D) model of human anterior chamber is reconstructed to explore the effect of different corneal temperatures on the heat transfer in the chamber. Based on the optical coherence tomography imaging of the volunteers with normal anterior chamber, a 3D anterior chamber model was reconstructed by the method of UG parametric design. Numerical simulation of heat transfer and aqueous humor flow in the whole anterior chamber were analyzed by the finite volume methods at different corneal temperatures. The results showed that different corneal temperatures had obvious influence on the temperature distribution and the aqueous flow in the anterior chamber. The temperature distribution is linear and axial symmetrical around the pupillary axis. As the temperature difference increases, the symmetry becomes poorer. Aqueous floated along the warm side and sank along the cool side which forms a vortexing flow. Its velocity increased with the addition of temperature difference. Heat fluxes of cornea, lens andiris were mainly affected by the aqueous velocity. The higher the velocity, the bigger more absolute value of the above-mentioned heat fluxes became. It is practicable to perform the numerical simulation of anterior chamber by the optical coherence tomography imaging. The results are useful for studying the important effect of corneal temperature on the heat transfer and aqueous humor dynamics in the anterior chamber.