Split operator finite element method for modelling pulmonary gas exchange

Abstract

A pulmonary gas exchange model which contains six species of interest in three different regions is considered. The model leads to a system of coupled non-linear parabolic partial differential equations and is solved using a transport-reaction split operator scheme. A Galerkin weighted residual finite element method solves the transport algorithm while a simple forward time step is used for the reaction algorithm. Using different time scales for the transport and reaction algorithms, we obtain a reasonable approximation of gas exchange.