Computational fluid dynamics analysis of Effects of housing expansion angle, stroke volume and path length of the fiber bundles on function of the artificial lung

An artificial lung can help patients waiting in line for a lung transplant or for heart bypass surgery as a respiratory aid. In this study, the incompressible and pulsatile Newtonian blood flow within a complete artificial lung model was investigated including inlet manifold, porous homogeneous medium, and outlet manifold. In this scale, the effect of variation of the expansion angle (15, 45 and 90 degrees), the stroke volume, the path length of the fibers on the artificial lung impedance was studied using computational fluid dynamics. The governing equations are discretized for numerical solution by finite volume method. Also, the turbulence model was selected by measuring the system impedance. In addition to the impedence, the shear stress distribution on the housing walls was investigated. The results showed that reducing the expansion angle, reducing the stroke volume and increasing the path length of the fibers will reduce the impedance of the system. The 45-degree model has been chosen as the appropriate model. Because not only its impedance is low, but also areas with low speed flow, which can lead to clot formation, are less than the 15-degree model. In order to have lower clot formation, it is better to have the artificial lung with the natural one in series.