RECONSTRUCTION OF COMPLEX PASSAGEWAYS FOR SIMULATIONS OF TRANSPORT PHENOMENA - DEVELOPMENT OF A GRAPHICAL USER-INTERFACE FOR BIOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS

Flow of fluids, such as blood, lymph and air, plays a major role in th e normal physiology of all living organisms. Within individual organ s ystems, flow fields may significantly influence the transport of solut es, including nutrients and chemical toxicants, to and from the confin ing vessel walls (epithelia and endothelia). Computational fluid dynam ics (CFD) provides a potentially useful tool for biologists and toxico logists investigating solute disposition in these flow fields in both normal and disease states. Application of CFD is dependent upon genera tion of accurate representations of the geometry of the system of inte rest in the form of a computational reconstruction. The present invest igations, which were based on studies of the toxicology of inhaled rea ctive gases in the respiratory tract of rodents, provide computer prog rams for the generation of finite element meshes from serial tissue cr oss-sections. These programs, which interface with a commercial finite element fluid dynamics simulation package (FIDAP 7.05, Fluid Dynamics International, Evanston, IL), permit simulation of fluid flow in the complex geometries and local solute mass flux to the vessel walls of b iological systems. The use of these programs and their application to studies of respiratory tract toxicology are described.