Department of Chemical Engineering, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Canada.
Biomech Model Mechanobiol. 2023 Dec;22(6):2117-2133. doi: 10.1007/s10237-023-01754-x. Epub 2023 Oct 10.
The most commonly used method to deliver aerosolized drugs to the lung is with pressurized metered-dose inhalers (pMDIs). The spray actuator is a critical component of pMDI, since it controls the atomization process by forming aerosol plumes and determining droplet size distribution. Through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, this study investigated the effect of two different nozzle types (single conventional and twin nozzles) on drug deposition in the mouth-throat (MT) region. We also studied the behavior of aerosol plumes in both an open-air environment and the MT geometry. Our study revealed that spray aerosol generated in an unconfined, open-air environment with no airflow behaves distinctly from spray introduced into the MT geometry in the presence of airflow. In addition, the actuator structure significantly impacts the device's efficacy. In the real MT model, we found that the twin nozzle increases drug deposition in the MT region, and its higher aerosol velocity negatively affects its efficiency.
将药物气溶胶递送至肺部最常用的方法是使用压力定量吸入器（pMDI）。喷雾器是 pMDI 的关键部件，因为它通过形成气溶胶羽流和确定液滴尺寸分布来控制雾化过程。通过计算流体动力学（CFD）模拟，本研究调查了两种不同喷嘴类型（单常规和双喷嘴）对口腔-咽喉（MT）区域药物沉积的影响。我们还研究了在开放空气环境和 MT 几何形状中气溶胶羽流的行为。我们的研究表明，在没有气流的无约束开放空气环境中生成的喷雾气溶胶与在存在气流的 MT 几何形状中引入的喷雾气溶胶明显不同。此外，致动器结构对设备的功效有重大影响。在真实的 MT 模型中，我们发现双喷嘴增加了 MT 区域的药物沉积，其较高的气溶胶速度对其效率产生负面影响。
