Manchester Applied Mathematics and Numerical Analysis Seminars Winter 1998

November 11, 1998, 4.00 pm

Lecture Theatre D13 Material Science

The reopening of flexible fluid-filled lung airways.

Oliver Jensen, DAMTP, University of Cambridge

The smaller airways in the lung may be treated very simply as flexible, liquid lined tubes. Surface tension acting at the internal air-liquid interface is a potentially destabilising force which can cause these airways to collapse, so that they become completely occluded with fluid. The airway must be reinflated to allow gas exchange to occur. I will describe a model of this reopening process, in which an advancing bubble of air peels apart airway walls `glued' together by viscous fluid. A combination of numerical (boundary element) and asymptotic techniques are employed, and theoretical predictions are tested against benchtop experiments.

For further info contact either Matthias Heil (mheil@ma.man.ac.uk), Mark Muldoon (M.Muldoon@umist.ac.uk)or the seminar secretary (Tel. 0161 275 5800).