Wet-Surface Modeling in Lattice-Boltzmann Simulations for Evaluating Surgery Impacts on the Humidity Transfer in Nasal Flows

A numerical study using the lattice-Boltzmann method is conducted to investigate the conditioning ability of the human nose, where a boundary treatment is implemented to model the latent heat effect. The humidity exchange at the wet surface of the nasal mucosa influences the wall temperature, imitating the thermal inertial effects of the mucosa tissue. To capture the curvature of the cavity geometry, interpolated bounce-back schemes are used to set the wall temperature and water concentration computed by the boundary model. The impact of evaporation on the conditioning ability is investigated for pre- and post-surgery cavity geometries of a patient that was diagnosed with enlarged turbinates and underwent turbinectomy. The widening of the nasal passages in the course of the turbinectomy cause a reduced pressure loss between the inlets (nostrils) and the outlet (pharynx), but also dry air streaming towards the back part of the airway-throat interface. This coincides with the patient’s perception, who reported less efforts for breathing in, but at the same time a dry and sometimes painful feeling at the back of the throat.