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Effects of space sizes on the dispersion of cough-generated droplets from a walking person

The dispersion of viral droplets plays a key role in the transmission of COVID-19. In this work, we analyze the dispersion of cough-generated droplets in the wake of a walking person for different space sizes. The air flow is simulated by solving the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations, and th...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Li, Zhaobin, Wang, Hongping, Zhang, Xinlei, Wu, Ting, Yang, Xiaolei
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: AIP Publishing LLC 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7757602/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33362398
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0034874
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author Li, Zhaobin
Wang, Hongping
Zhang, Xinlei
Wu, Ting
Yang, Xiaolei
author_facet Li, Zhaobin
Wang, Hongping
Zhang, Xinlei
Wu, Ting
Yang, Xiaolei
author_sort Li, Zhaobin
collection PubMed
description The dispersion of viral droplets plays a key role in the transmission of COVID-19. In this work, we analyze the dispersion of cough-generated droplets in the wake of a walking person for different space sizes. The air flow is simulated by solving the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations, and the droplets are modeled as passive Lagrangian particles. Simulation results show that the cloud of droplets locates around and below the waist height of the manikin after 2 s from coughing, which indicates that kids walking behind an infectious patient are exposed to higher transmission risk than adults. More importantly, two distinct droplet dispersion modes occupying significantly different contamination regions are discovered. A slight change of space size is found being able to trigger the transition of dispersion modes even though the flow patterns are still similar. This shows the importance of accurately simulating the air flow in predicting the dispersion of viral droplets and implies the necessity to set different safe-distancing guidelines for different environments.
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spelling pubmed-77576022020-12-23 Effects of space sizes on the dispersion of cough-generated droplets from a walking person Li, Zhaobin Wang, Hongping Zhang, Xinlei Wu, Ting Yang, Xiaolei Phys Fluids (1994) Letters The dispersion of viral droplets plays a key role in the transmission of COVID-19. In this work, we analyze the dispersion of cough-generated droplets in the wake of a walking person for different space sizes. The air flow is simulated by solving the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations, and the droplets are modeled as passive Lagrangian particles. Simulation results show that the cloud of droplets locates around and below the waist height of the manikin after 2 s from coughing, which indicates that kids walking behind an infectious patient are exposed to higher transmission risk than adults. More importantly, two distinct droplet dispersion modes occupying significantly different contamination regions are discovered. A slight change of space size is found being able to trigger the transition of dispersion modes even though the flow patterns are still similar. This shows the importance of accurately simulating the air flow in predicting the dispersion of viral droplets and implies the necessity to set different safe-distancing guidelines for different environments. AIP Publishing LLC 2020-12-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7757602/ /pubmed/33362398 http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0034874 Text en © 2020 Author(s) Published under license by AIP Publishing. 1070-6631/2020/32(12)/121705/5/$30.00 All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Letters
Li, Zhaobin
Wang, Hongping
Zhang, Xinlei
Wu, Ting
Yang, Xiaolei
Effects of space sizes on the dispersion of cough-generated droplets from a walking person
title Effects of space sizes on the dispersion of cough-generated droplets from a walking person
title_full Effects of space sizes on the dispersion of cough-generated droplets from a walking person
title_fullStr Effects of space sizes on the dispersion of cough-generated droplets from a walking person
title_full_unstemmed Effects of space sizes on the dispersion of cough-generated droplets from a walking person
title_short Effects of space sizes on the dispersion of cough-generated droplets from a walking person
title_sort effects of space sizes on the dispersion of cough-generated droplets from a walking person
topic Letters
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7757602/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33362398
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0034874
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