Figure 4. Computational simulation of airway and acinar behavior under positive pressure ventilation in injured lung, in a 3-dimensional morphologically realistic right rabbit lung at PEEP 6 cmH2O.
A: right lung structural model comprising 7175 airways feeding 3843 acinar units B: short-term changes of the lung open fraction over time; 3 arbitrary time points approximately 1 min apart are selected for comparison with the experimental data. C,D: recruitment/derecruitment distribution computed in between the 3 selected time points. White: stable aerated; Black: stable collapsed; Green: opening (recruitment); Red: closing (derecruitment); Blue Circles: alternating recruitment/derecruitment behavior. Distributions are shown for the same time points as in B. Left: Full lung; Right: 2 mm slice similar to the experimental images.