Wet surface wall model for latent heat exchange during evaporation

Kiao Inthavong, David F. Fletcher, Mehrdad Khamooshi, Sara Vahaji, Hana Salati

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Air conditioning is a dual heat and mass transfer process, and the human nasal cavity achieves this through the mucosal wall surface, which is supplied with an energy source through the sub-epithelial network of capillaries. Computational studies of air conditioning in the nasal cavity have included temperature and humidity, but most studies solved these flow parameters separately, and in some cases, a constant mucosal surface temperature was used. Recent developments demonstrated that both heat and mass transfer need to be modeled. This work expands on existing modeling efforts in accounting for the nasal cavity's dual heat and mass transfer process by introducing a new subwall model, given in the Supplementary Materials. The model was applied to a pipe geometry, and a human nasal cavity was recreated from CT-scans, and six inhalation conditions were studied. The results showed that when the energy transfer from the latent heat of evaporation is included, there is a cooling effect on the mucosal surface temperature.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere3581
Number of pages13
JournalInternational Journal for Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering
Volume38
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2022
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • CFD
  • drug delivery
  • nasal cavity
  • nebulizer
  • transient

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