Citation

Chang Y, Zhao XZ, Wang C, Ning FG, Zhang GA. J. Burn Care Res. 2014; 36(4): 500-508.

Affiliation

From the *Department of Burns, Beijing Jishuitan Hospital, PR China; and †Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, PR China.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, American Burn Association, Publisher Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

10.1097/BCR.0000000000000181

PMID

25412055

Abstract

Inhalation injury is an important cause of death after thermal burns. This study was designed to simulate the velocity and temperature distribution of inhalation thermal injury in the upper airway in humans using computational fluid dynamics. Cervical computed tomography images of three Chinese adults were imported to Mimics software to produce three-dimensional models. After grids were established and boundary conditions were defined, the simulation time was set at 1 minute and the gas temperature was set to 80 to 320°C using ANSYS software (ANSYS, Canonsburg, PA) to simulate the velocity and temperature distribution of inhalation thermal injury. Cross-sections were cut at 2-mm intervals, and maximum airway temperature and velocity were recorded for each cross-section. The maximum velocity peaked in the lower part of the nasal cavity and then decreased with air flow. The velocities in the epiglottis and glottis were higher than those in the surrounding areas. Further, the maximum airway temperature decreased from the nasal cavity to the trachea. Computational fluid dynamics technology can be used to simulate the velocity and temperature distribution of inhaled heated air.

Language: en