Image Based Simulation of Pulmonary Airflow Using Multi-Level Voxel Modeling

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) refers to a group of diseases that are characterized by airflow obstruction. Currently, COPD is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide, but fluid dynamics in airways of COPD patients has not been well understood. Multi-slice Computer Tomography (CT) images provide three-dimensional realistic geometry of patient airways. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis using the patient-specific geometry will greatly help the understanding of the mechanism of COPD. However, few studies have performed such a patient-specific pulmonary airflow simulation. Our aim is to develop a patient-specific CFD method applicable to multi-scale airways, involving trachea, bronchi, bronchioles, and alveoli. We propose a CFD method using multi-level voxel modeling of airway geometry, in which voxel size in a local domain is adaptively refined or coarsened to the local flow scale.