Fig. 3.
The evolution of resistance (RL6) and reactance (XL6) of the airway tree from the real part of the impedance and lung elastance at 6 Hz (EL) for airway trees with various degrees of asymmetry in branching during the simulation of 600 breaths at Tr = 0.9. RL6 increased to a peak at about 40 breaths followed by a decline. As the airway radii reached steady state, RL6 was lowest in the most asymmetric lungs. XL6 behavior was similar and also stabilized with the lowest XL6 for the most asymmetric lungs. EL showed similar behavior for all degrees of asymmetry; however, the symmetric lung maintained a lower EL throughout the simulation.