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A CFD study of the transport and fate of airborne droplets in a ventilated office: The role of droplet-droplet interactions

Previous studies reported that specially designed ventilation systems provide good air quality and safe environment by removing airborne droplets that contain viruses expelled by infected people. These water droplets can be stable in the environment and remain suspended in air for prolonged periods....

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Autores principales: Gomez-Flores, Allan, Hwang, Gukhwa, Ilyas, Sadia, Kim, Hyunjung
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Higher Education Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8239320/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34221534
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11783-021-1465-8
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author Gomez-Flores, Allan
Hwang, Gukhwa
Ilyas, Sadia
Kim, Hyunjung
author_facet Gomez-Flores, Allan
Hwang, Gukhwa
Ilyas, Sadia
Kim, Hyunjung
author_sort Gomez-Flores, Allan
collection PubMed
description Previous studies reported that specially designed ventilation systems provide good air quality and safe environment by removing airborne droplets that contain viruses expelled by infected people. These water droplets can be stable in the environment and remain suspended in air for prolonged periods. Encounters between droplets may occur and droplet interactions should be considered. However, the previous studies focused on other physical phenomena (air flow, drag force, evaporation) for droplet transport and neglected droplet interactions. In this work, we used computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate the transport and fate of airborne droplets expelled by an asymptomatic person and considered droplet interactions. Droplet drag with turbulence for prediction of transport and fate of droplets indicated that the turbulence increased the transport of 1 µm droplets, whereas it decreased the transport of 50 µm droplets. In contrast to only considering drag and turbulence, consideration of droplet interactions tended to increase both the transport and fate. Although the length scale of the office is much larger than the droplet sizes, the droplet interactions, which occurred at the initial stages of release when droplet separation distances were shorter, had a significant effect in droplet fate by considerably manipulating the final locations on surfaces where droplets adhered. Therefore, it is proposed that when an exact prediction of transport and fate is required, especially for high droplet concentrations, the effects of droplet interactions should not be ignored. [Image: see text] ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at 10.1007/s11783-021-1465-8 and is accessible for authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-82393202021-06-29 A CFD study of the transport and fate of airborne droplets in a ventilated office: The role of droplet-droplet interactions Gomez-Flores, Allan Hwang, Gukhwa Ilyas, Sadia Kim, Hyunjung Front Environ Sci Eng Research Article Previous studies reported that specially designed ventilation systems provide good air quality and safe environment by removing airborne droplets that contain viruses expelled by infected people. These water droplets can be stable in the environment and remain suspended in air for prolonged periods. Encounters between droplets may occur and droplet interactions should be considered. However, the previous studies focused on other physical phenomena (air flow, drag force, evaporation) for droplet transport and neglected droplet interactions. In this work, we used computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate the transport and fate of airborne droplets expelled by an asymptomatic person and considered droplet interactions. Droplet drag with turbulence for prediction of transport and fate of droplets indicated that the turbulence increased the transport of 1 µm droplets, whereas it decreased the transport of 50 µm droplets. In contrast to only considering drag and turbulence, consideration of droplet interactions tended to increase both the transport and fate. Although the length scale of the office is much larger than the droplet sizes, the droplet interactions, which occurred at the initial stages of release when droplet separation distances were shorter, had a significant effect in droplet fate by considerably manipulating the final locations on surfaces where droplets adhered. Therefore, it is proposed that when an exact prediction of transport and fate is required, especially for high droplet concentrations, the effects of droplet interactions should not be ignored. [Image: see text] ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at 10.1007/s11783-021-1465-8 and is accessible for authorized users. Higher Education Press 2021-06-20 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8239320/ /pubmed/34221534 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11783-021-1465-8 Text en © Higher Education Press 2021 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Research Article
Gomez-Flores, Allan
Hwang, Gukhwa
Ilyas, Sadia
Kim, Hyunjung
A CFD study of the transport and fate of airborne droplets in a ventilated office: The role of droplet-droplet interactions
title A CFD study of the transport and fate of airborne droplets in a ventilated office: The role of droplet-droplet interactions
title_full A CFD study of the transport and fate of airborne droplets in a ventilated office: The role of droplet-droplet interactions
title_fullStr A CFD study of the transport and fate of airborne droplets in a ventilated office: The role of droplet-droplet interactions
title_full_unstemmed A CFD study of the transport and fate of airborne droplets in a ventilated office: The role of droplet-droplet interactions
title_short A CFD study of the transport and fate of airborne droplets in a ventilated office: The role of droplet-droplet interactions
title_sort cfd study of the transport and fate of airborne droplets in a ventilated office: the role of droplet-droplet interactions
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8239320/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34221534
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11783-021-1465-8
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