FLUID ANALYSIS AND NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF A LUNG SIMULATOR WITH COPPER WOOL

Abstract

A mechanical lung simulator is an important tool to simulate the severity of lung disease. In this paper, a lung simulator is proposed, which is composed of a glass bottle, a pressure sensor, copper wool, etc. Its working mechanism is based upon the ideal gas equation. The glass bottle simulates human lung, and copper wool is used to quickly keep gas temperature in the bottle stable. The main issue discussed is about how much copper wool is appropriate to approximate isothermal conditions when copper wool is uniformly placed in the lung simulator. Three aspects including (1) theoretical fluid analysis, computation, and derivation based upon the ideal gas equation; (2) three-dimensional geometric meshing and numerical simulation based upon the ANSYS FLUENT; and (3) the experiment reveals that copper wool corresponding to 2–3% by volume of the lung simulator is enough to quickly keep gas temperature in the lung simulator stable and to realize quasi-isothermal conditions.