Fluid-Structure Modeling of Lung Epithelial Cell Deformation During the Reopening of Compliant Airways

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a severe lung disease caused by a variety of direct and indirect insults. During ARDS edema fluid accumulated in the lung inhibits gas exchange between air and blood. The main treatment for ARDS is mechanical ventilation. The ventilation of fluid filled lungs involves the propagation of microbubbles over a layer of epithelial cells as shown in Figure 1. Unfortunately, experimental studies [1,3] have demonstrated that the large shear and normal stress gradients generated by microbubbles cause significant cellular deformation and injury. As a result, the mortality rates for ARDS is high (∼30–40%).