Particle transport characteristics in indoor environment with an air cleaner: The effect of nonuniform particle distributions

Air cleaners are expected to improve the indoor air quality by removing the gaseous contaminants and fine particles. In our former work, the effects of the air cleaner on removing the uniformly distributed particles were numerically investigated. Based on those results, this work further explores the performances of the air cleaner in the reduction of two nonuniform particle distributions generated by smoking and coughing. The Lagrangian discrete trajectory model combined with the Eulerian fluid method is employed to simulate the airflow pattern and particle transport in a room. In general, the results show that the particle fates have been resulted from the interaction between the emitting source and the air cleaner. And the position of the air cleaner is a key parameter affecting the particle concentration, for which a shorter distance between the air cleaner and the human body corresponds to a lower concentration. Besides, the air velocity emitted from the human mouth and the orientation of the air cleaner can also influence the transport of particles.