Analytical Modeling of Alveolar and Lung Tissue Mechanics

Our lab is interested in understanding how macroscopic behavior results from microscopic properties and how these are intertwined to serve a particular structure-function relationship. To this end, we develop analytical multi-scale mathematical models to relate macroscopic measurements to microscopic properties. As an example, such models relate (1) stress-strain curves in uniaxially stretched lung tissue strips to alveolar wall and fiber properties and (2) macroscopic pressure-volume curves to microscopic fiber properties (i.e. stiffness and waviness). Through these models we can estimate the properties of the micro-constituents such as fiber and alveolar wall stiffness as well as shed light on how their organization serves different roles. For instance, the alveolar model has predicted that across species the thickness-to-radius ratio of alveoli remains constant to satisfy alveolar inflation stability and preliminary literature results support this finding.