Rationale: The physiopathological characteristics involving in lung ventilation of patients with intersitial lung diseases (ILD) remain poorly understood.

 Objectives: To develop a model of control and ILD profile ventilation, and determine conditions favoring volo- and atelec-trauma.

Methods and measurements: On a 2 compartments (A1 and A2) mechanical artificial lung simulator (ASL 5000), we modeled a control and ILD profiles at rest and during exercise from physiological data from the literature and real-life patients (pulmonary function and cardiopulmonary exercise tests). Tidal volume (TV) repartition, end-expiratory lung volume (EELV), driving pressure (?P), driving transpulmonary pressure (?P_tp), dynamic alveolar strain (Strain_alv), mechanical power (MP), time lag between inspiratory flow in A1 and A2 (?t _(Q1-Q2)), were measured.

Main results: Models of control and ILD profiles were validated: maximal difference between real and simulated TV was 3% (14ml) at rest and 6% (121ml) at exercise but considered as non-clinically relevant. When compliance in A1 (C1) > C2 (inhomogeneous lung), TV, EELV, ?P and MP increase in A1 and decrease in A2. ?P_tp and Strain_alv increase in A2 and decrease in A1. ?t _(Q1-Q2) was positively correlated to the difference between C1 and C2 (r=0.96, CI_95% (0.7007; 0.9962), p<0.002).

Conclusion: This physiological bench study designed for the first time a mechanical model of lung ventilation that can reproduce lung heterogeneity and the mechanisms of volo- and atelec-trauma in ILD. This model could be useful for simulating de novo acute respiratory failure or acute exacerbation of ILD.