Aerosol Drug Delivery and Deposition in the Human Lung

Description: This project simulates the delivery of asthma spray into the human lungs using ANSYS Fluent, extending inhaler modeling beyond the device itself to examine how the released aerosol travels and deposits within a realistic lung airway structure.

Methodology: The 3D lung geometry, built in SpaceClaim, features a 50 cm inlet diameter and is meshed in ANSYS Meshing with 3,734,238 elements. Given the time-dependent nature of inhalation and particle transport, a transient solver is used, with air entering at 5 m/s and gravity set to −9.81 m/s² along the z-axis. A one-way coupled Discrete Phase Model tracks 100 µm aerosol particles introduced through a surface-velocity injection at the inlet, while turbulence in the airflow is resolved using the realizable k–ε model.

Analysis: Post-processing includes 2D and 3D contours of velocity and pressure, along with an animation of particle tracks moving through the lung domain. These results illustrate how the spray distributes across the airway structure following inhalation, offering insight into particle transport and deposition behavior within the lungs.