Artificial neonatal airway model

The main aim of this project is to establish the effectiveness of Bubble CPAP in transmitting pressure oscillations through the neonatal tracheobronchial tree. As it is very difficult to establish how much of the pressure oscillation delivered to the mouth can reach the various branches during in-vivo measurements, this research focuses in developing an in-vitro experiment on the lung model. Hollow lung models for 128 and 142 day gestation lambs were created from existing silicon lung casts. An experimental setup using a lung simulator and pressure sensors was developed. Different combinations of respiratory rate and frequencies with different amplitudes were used to perform experimental tests. The current ovine respiratory system which was available at IBTec was modified to reflect the current experimental setup. Computer simulations were performed and compared with the experimental results. The study indicates that pressure waves with different frequencies can be delivered to different locations of the lung by controlling the pressure oscillation source to the lung