In recent years, space exploration has been driving studies that enable sustained human presence in space. In such studies, fluidics relating to biology have become important. Fluids in biological systems span from large-scale flows relevant to circulatory, digestion, and pulmonary systems, but also involve many micro-scale porous flows. Hence, space exploration is driving a novel need to characterize fluidics in microscales in microgravity conditions. In this work, we study the porous flow network within bones that stimulates cellular growth and has the potential to relate to osteoporosis (including driving osteoporosis in astronauts). To study this effect, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are performed on a microfluidic device with a hexagon structure and compared to experimental results in both normal gravity (1g) and microgravity (0g) via Blue Origin's New Shepard Vehicle (NS-23 attempt and NS-24 launch). CFD results have been created to predict the transport character of nutrients in the bones. These insights have the potential to lead to preventative measures for osteoporosis in astronauts.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd2023-1479 |
| Date | 01 January 2024 |
| Creators | Peterson, Taylor A |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024 |
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