In silico approaches to respiratory nasal flows: A review

The engineering discipline of in silico fluid dynamics delivers quantitative information on airflow behaviour in the nasal regions with unprecedented detail, often beyond the reach of traditional experiments. The ability to provide visualisation and analysis of flow properties such as velocity and pressure fields, as well as wall shear stress, dynamically during the respiratory cycle may give significant insight to clinicians. Yet, there remains ongoing challenges to advance the state-of-the-art further, including for example the lack of comprehensive CFD modelling on varied cohorts of patients. The present article embodies a review of previous and current in silico approaches to simulating nasal airflows. The review discusses specific modelling techniques required to accommodate physiologically- and clinically-relevant findings. It also provides a critical summary of the reported results in the literature followed by an outlook on the challenges and topics anticipated to drive research into the future.