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Flow Changes of Vestibular System due to Changes in Volume and Ellipticity

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Conference

2023 ASEE North Central Section Conference

Location

Morgantown, West Virginia

Publication Date

March 24, 2023

Start Date

March 24, 2023

End Date

March 25, 2023

Page Count

14

DOI

10.18260/1-2--44692

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/44692

Download Count

223

Paper Authors

biography

Vincent Rodney Sheeler Ohio Northern University

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Vincent is a mechanical engineering student from Ohio Northern University. His interests in research are in topics of fluid dynamics, heat transfer, computational fluid dynamics, and thermodynamics.

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Lacey Lynn Wernoch Ohio Northern University

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Lacey Wernoch is a senior mechanical engineering student at Ohio Northern University with a bioengineering concentration and a Spanish minor. In her professional future, she would like to work with biomechanics, biomaterials, or medical instruments.

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biography

Jed E. Marquart P.E. Ohio Northern University

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Jed Marquart received his B.S.M.E. from Ohio Northern University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Dayton. His 11 years in industry were spent primarily working for the U.S. Air Force in the areas of computational fl

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Hui Shen Ohio Northern University

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Dr. Hui Shen is a professor at Ohio Northern University. Her research interests lie in mechanical behavior of materials, biomaterials, and biomechanics.

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Abstract

Motion sickness is a very common condition shared among human beings. The generally accepted explanation for motion sickness is a disconnect between the motion the brain is expecting and the experienced motion. Many studies have been performed to investigate the external inputs and internal factors related to an individual’s susceptibility of motion. There is no general agreement on the definitive cause of motion sickness. It is our great interest to explore why some individuals are more sensitive to motion. The vestibular system located in the human inner ear is important in sensing motion and maintaining balance of the body. The focus of the current study is to investigate the effects of the canal volume and ellipticity on the response of motion. It is difficult to research pressure differences experimentally in the ear because of how small the vestibules are and the inadequacies of current measuring tools. Computational fluid dynamics was therefore used to model the vestibules to observe fluid movement and pressure distributions in the middle ear. Flow differences around varied structures could explain what causes some humans to be sensitive to mechanical stresses and help explain the experience of motion sickness. The superior vestibule was modeled and analyzed as the head is rapidly turned. It was found that the responses change with the volume and ellipticity.

Sheeler, V. R., & Wernoch, L. L., & Marquart, J. E., & Shen, H. (2023, March), Flow Changes of Vestibular System due to Changes in Volume and Ellipticity Paper presented at 2023 ASEE North Central Section Conference, Morgantown, West Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--44692

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