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Riccardo Armellini
The aim of this thesis is to investigate nasal cavity flow using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In detail, this thesis aims to address a very specific issue, namely whether anatomical alterations that require surgical corrections, such as for example hypertrophy and deviation of the nasal septum, can somehow leave a footprint and manifest itself in the exhaled flow outside the nasal cavities. The potential idea is to exploit optical visualization techniques, such as Schlieren methodologies, to photograph the external flowfield in patients with pathologies: if correlations could be find between pathologies and the structure of the flowfield, it could be provided a diagnosis based on simple external visualizations.In order to investigate such correlations, high fidelity compressibile and heat-exchange LES simulations were performed within the Openfoam environment. Two patients, P1 and P2 respectively, were considered, for which 3 simulations each took place for a total of 6 simulations: two simulations for the geometries without anomalies, two for geometries with left inferior hypertrophy and two for geometries with deviation of the right nasal septum. The results were then studied and compared to identify similarities and differences in terms of the quantities characterizing the flowfield such as velocity, temperature, density gradient.
Obviously, to recognize common correlation patterns requires a substantial number of simulations and patients geometry: the objective of this thesis is so limited to verify the feasibility of the idea by studying the existence of such correlation patterns.