Affiliations: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Konkuk
University, #1 Hwayang-dong, Kwangjin-ku, Seoul, 143-701, Korea. e-mail:
sungkim@konkuk.ac.kr | Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head & Neck
Surgery, Sungkyunkwan University, School of Medicine, Samsung Medical Center,
Seoul, Korea. e-mail: rhinochung@skku.edu
Abstract: The creation of the accurate transparent flow passage is essential
to analyze the flow inward a geometrically complex flow passage like human
airway by PIV. We established the procedure to create a transparent box
containing a model of the human airway for PIV measurements. A flow passage
includes the whole human upper airway, nasal cavities, larynx, trachea, and 2
generations of bronchi. The phase averaged mean and RMS velocity distributions
in sagittal and coronal planes are obtained for 7 phases in a respiratory
period by tomographic PIV. Some physiologic conjectures are obtained. The main
stream went through the backside of larynx and trachea in inspiration and the
frontal side in expiration.
Keywords: Tomographic PIV, Biomedical flow, Human airway, CT, Physical Model
