UCL Nasal Team 2020

Team Members:

Xinye Chen
Zhixing Wang
Yanchang Hu
Feng’ao Zhang
Haoyuan Li
Haoxiang Wen.

Supervisor

Dr Eral Bele and Dr PJ Tan

The Project

Nasal airway (NAO) obstruction is a common health issue suffered by many patients. One of the most popular treatment for NAO is through surgery but often has poor outcome due to the lack of information of airflow at the obstructed region. Our project is to provide the surgeons with data of flow rate, flow streamline, flow contour and flow pressure at that obstructed region, by carrying out both experimental and numerical study.

The Design

We reconstructed two 3D nasal models, one patient model and one healthy model, based on CT scans provided by the surgeons using Simpleware. The models were 3D printed for experimental study, and imported into ANSYS for numerical study (i.e. CFD & FSI). Both experimental and numerical studies were completed on rigid (non-deformable) nasal models. Only experimental study was completed on non-rigid (i.e. deformable) nasal model as numerical study on non-rigid model is inherently computationally expensive and complex, let alone to be completed remotely. Results from our experimental measurement, our CFD and literature are found to be in good agreement.