Chitresh Kumar Bhargava

Research Information

                                                                         Tracking nanoparticle movement in alveolar flows

The transfer of desirable (drugs) or undesirable aerosols (pollutants) in the lung occurs in small sacs known as alveoli (more than 300 million in numbers). The understanding of transport and deposition of such nanoparticles in our lungs is of deep interest. It enables us to study the health effects both for the sake of potential risks due to pollutants and safety to pharmaceutical drug delivery. The alveolar airflow is a periodic cavity flow and is Stokesian, which can exhibit chaotic mixing leading to complex and flow topologies which are uneasy to predict based on Eulerian flow field. I simulate and analyze fluid flow and particle deposition in various complex alveolar models of the pulmonary tract through computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The expected outcome of my research would be a novel understanding of transport and deposition mechanisms that occur in alveolar flows. Impact of three-dimensional lobe dynamics in cavity flows under periodic forcing would be addressed. This knowledge would assist in classifying coherent structures in alveolar flows and the impact upon the transport of nanoparticles.

Project title: Deep in the Lung: Nanoparticles transport and deposition in alveolar flows

Project Supervisors: Prof. Devang V. Khakhar, Prof. Murray Rudman and Dr. Guy Metcalfe