Futurities, the EnginSoft magazine, has recently featured our FF4EuroHPC project DiTAiD in their latest article: ‘A digital twin of airflow and inhaled drug delivery in a human airway’. Respiratory diseases like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) arise when human airways narrow. The conventional medical approach involves patients inhaling drug particles, but uneven distribution can lead to ineffective treatment. To address this, the FF4EuroHPC experiment introduces an innovative solution—a user-friendly digital twin (DT). The DT, based on a reduced order model (ROM) and employing mesh morphing technologies, predicts particle deposition in any human airway. Unlike traditional CFD studies that are time-consuming and expensive, this approach dramatically reduces complexity while maintaining detail.

The ROM, generated on a 960-core HPC system, allows for quick and efficient simulations. Here’s the game-changer: medical images of the patient’s airway are fed into the software, automatically extracting shape parameters. With just one click, the DT reproduces CFD analysis results from the ROM, streamlining the optimization of particle size without the need for time-consuming workflows. This groundbreaking development not only offers a more efficient and cost-effective alternative but also holds immense potential for urgent medical cases.

We invite you to explore the full article by following this link