Computational and experimental investigations of a novel reusable face mask for treating sinusitis disease

• Main Authors: Persis Rofail, Rola Afify, Hassan El-Gamal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021-09-01
• Series: Ain Shams Engineering Journal
• Subjects: Sinus disease; Facial mask; Numerical analysis; Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD); ANSYS FLUENT
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090447921001313

Sinusitis disease has become widespread lately. Warming the sinus area with a face mask may prevent sinusitis disease, which may occur due to the presence in a place colder than body temperature especially on a cold morning day. This paper proposes experimentally the creation of a transparent facemask prototype that can maintain warmth in both the maxillary and frontal sinus areas. It contains an overlap volume to improve temperature, CO2 and H2O comfort. Furthermore, a two-dimensional numerical study is provided by Ansys® FLUENT 2020 R1 Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations using RNG (ReNormalization Group), k-ɛ turbulence model. It predicts flow characteristics of velocity, temperature, and mass fraction of CO2 and H2O distributions during 28 breathing cycles. This approach is validated by comparing its results with previous studies and the experimentally measured results for temperature using an Arduino Temperature sensor at a selected point within the experimental prototype. The mean temperature values rise to reach a steady-state for both numerical and experimental study. The CO2 and H2O concentrations inside the mask are very small. The results confirm that the mask achieves its purpose in warming nasal and sinus areas.