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Intensive Care Medicine Experimental
Fig. 1 | Intensive Care Medicine Experimental

Fig. 1

From: Transpulmonary and pleural pressure in a respiratory system model with an elastic recoiling lung and an expanding chest wall

Fig. 1

Respiratory system model. Left panel: model with no expanding force of the chest wall, where the lung volume is at residual volume and pleural pressure is zero. Right panel: model with evacuated pleural space, with a pressure of −5 cmH2O, which causes a higher fluid level in the plastic container than in the abdominal sack. As a consequence, the fluid in the plastic container wants to flow towards the sack, imitating the rib cage spring-out force, while the lung is inflated by a positive transpulmonary pressure of 5 cmH2O (zero airway pressure minus −5 cmH2O pleural pressure), to functional residual capacity (FRC). Nominal lung compliance of 19, 38, and 57 ml/cmH2O was achieved by using one, two, or three test lungs in parallel. A stiff chest wall was achieved by strapping hard board on the outside of the pleural space

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