The Study of Oxygen Diffusivity Effects on Oxygen Uptakein Pulmonary Capillaries

Pulmonary diseases are of high risk because of their close relationship to human’s life. Most ofthese diseases are involved with oxygen uptake in pulmonary capillaries. In this paper, the effect ofvarying diffusion capacity of oxygen on respiration process has been studied. A 2D axi-symmetric FiniteVolume Model was considered to describe the oxygen uptake in the pulmonary capillaries using FLUENT6.2 software. The model consists of three main parts: a stationary capillary membrane, a moving plasmaregion and four semi-circular-shaped RBCs. Different diffusion coefficients were used to investigate thesaturation process of RBCs. Results showed a rapid reaction between hemoglobin and oxygen. It hasbeen found that the diffusion capacity was an effective parameter on oxygen uptake.