Prediction of the Deposition of Dry Powder Aerosols

The trajectory, mass fluxes, and deposition of aerosolized particles in a complex tubular system have been predicted. A procedure based on Lagrangian stochastic modeling is proposed to enable the anticipation of such phenomena, taking advantage of experimental results to characterize the air flow. The predictions have been obtained for pharmaceutical aerosols delivered by dry powder inhalers. A critical assessment of the dispersion model has been carried out using data available in the literature. The procedure assumes a low volume fraction of particles in the simulation of turbulent dispersion, but deposition is physically based on the interaction between the particles and both solid and liquid surfaces. The results were confirmed by experimental tests of powder deposition, run according to the European Pharmacopoeia. A parametric study was also carried out with the aim of providing a more complete evaluation of the model’s performance. The comparison between predictions and experimental results has shown that the model properly describes the deposition of aerosolized particles.