Computational fluid and biofluid mechanics
Computational fluid dynamics is a powerful numerical tool that can be used to solve complex fluid mechanics and heat/mass transfer problems of interest to a number of disciplines including mechanical, chemical, biomedical, aerospace and civil engineering. CFD offers a highly flexible environment to conduct “virtual experiments” of fluid transport systems that may be too complex for theoretical analysis and approximation techniques. In addition, CFD can be used to analyze systems for which physical experiments are not feasible or are cost prohibitive. Cutting-edge technologies that are being significantly enhanced by the application of CFD include homeland security and bioterrorism defense, fuel cell design, MEMS/Nanosystem development, micro-scale semiconductor processing, medical device design and pharmaceutical drug delivery.
Biofluid dynamics is characterized by the study of biological-based fluids or more common fluids in biological systems. Representative biofluid systems include blood flow in the cardiovascular system and airflow in the lungs. Complexities associated with blood flow include the effects of red blood cells on viscosity, multiple scales from binding pockets on the order of nanometers to vessel diameters on the order of a centimeter, reactive vessel surfaces and moving boundaries. Furthermore, biofluid systems are often comprised of large flow networks, such as the lung, which contains approximately 15 million airways and 480 million alveoli. CFD provides an effective platform to study these systems. User developed sub-models are often necessary to address the inherent complexities.
Applications of biofluid mechanics are often focused on cardiovascular and respiratory therapies, which include medical device design and development. The study of airflow and aerosol transport in the lungs can be applied to dose estimates of inhaled pollutants to better establish environmental exposure standards, the design of targeted therapeutic aerosols to more effectively treat respiratory diseases such as asthma and COPD, and bioterrorism preparedness. Applications of blood flow analysis include surgical vessel connectors that resist secondary occlusions, artificial hearts and valves, vascular stents, targeted drug delivery, blood substitutes, and treatment protocols for the survival of traumatic shock.