Respiratory Biomechanics

The respiratory system offers many opportunities to apply the different branches of traditional mechanics. Tissue deformations and stresses during lung expansion can be analyzed using the principles of solid mechanics. Fluid mechanical problems in the lung are unique. There is the matched distribution of two fluids, gas and blood, in two intertwined, branched conduit systems. The reversing flow of the gas phase presents different problems than the pulsatile flow of the non-Newtonian fluid that is the blood. On the smaller scale, there is the flux of fluids and solutes across the capillary membrane. Finally, there is the problem of coupling fluid and solid mechanics to understand the overall behaviour of the respiratory system. This volume brings together the invited papers from the Respiratory Biomechanics Symposium of the First World Congress of Biomechanics, held in La Jolla, California, August-September 1990. It addresses the basic processes that contribute to the gas and fluid exchange functions of the lung.