A multi-scale model of gas transport in the lung to study heterogeneous lung ventilation during the multiple-breath washout test
Fig 6
N2 washout for baseline model configuration and modified trumpet lobule properties.
Results of the simulated N2MBW for the baseline configuration (uniform and constant lung model parameters) and for three cases where different trumpet lobule parameters were modified regionally: 1) Lobular compliance was altered using ϕ = 0.5,1.5 in two regions (same as for results shown in Fig 4), 2) the lobular residual volume was decreased using θ = 0.5, 3) the hydrodynamic resistance was amplified by a factor of 8 for 25% of all lobules. Normalized phase III slopes sIII are shown for the first (a) and last (b) breath. (c, d) The washout (only the envelope of the N2 end-expiratory concentrations (symbols) and the corresponding fitting functions (dashed line, Eq 13) are shown) for 50 simulated breaths.