I am getting tripped up on how increased/decreased elastic recoil affects the lungs. Would someone be willing to dig into how elastic recoil affects all the different factors we need to consider for inhalation/expiration?
Can someone explain elastic recoil in the lungs?
- Thread starter 28503
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2016
- Messages
- 1,401
- Reaction score
- 3,306
Firstly, this is decently LY.
A decent way to think about it is to think of a plastic balloon vs shopping bag. Inflating a balloon, and leaving an opening will force the air to escape as the elastic will return to the non stretched smaller shape. Inflating a shopping bag will not result in the shopping bag wanting to return to the normal state, and it will most likely stay inflated, as there is no force that wants the shopping bag to return to an not inflated state. Lungs of course inflate by a different mechanism, but the elasticity of the lungs is part of the mechanism that drives deflation as you exhale.
A decent way to think about it is to think of a plastic balloon vs shopping bag. Inflating a balloon, and leaving an opening will force the air to escape as the elastic will return to the non stretched smaller shape. Inflating a shopping bag will not result in the shopping bag wanting to return to the normal state, and it will most likely stay inflated, as there is no force that wants the shopping bag to return to an not inflated state. Lungs of course inflate by a different mechanism, but the elasticity of the lungs is part of the mechanism that drives deflation as you exhale.
Similar threads
- Question