Cargando…

Minimizing the COVID-19 spread in hospitals through optimization of ventilation systems

The rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus has overwhelmed hospitals with patients in need of intensive care, which is often limited in capacity and is generally reserved for patients with critical conditions. This has led to higher chances of infection being spread to non-COVID-19 patients and healthcare...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Arjmandi, Hamed, Amini, Reza, Kashfi, Mehdi, Abikenari, Matthew Alexander, Davani, Ashkan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: AIP Publishing LLC 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8939549/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35342279
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0081291
_version_ 1784672747704549376
author Arjmandi, Hamed
Amini, Reza
Kashfi, Mehdi
Abikenari, Matthew Alexander
Davani, Ashkan
author_facet Arjmandi, Hamed
Amini, Reza
Kashfi, Mehdi
Abikenari, Matthew Alexander
Davani, Ashkan
author_sort Arjmandi, Hamed
collection PubMed
description The rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus has overwhelmed hospitals with patients in need of intensive care, which is often limited in capacity and is generally reserved for patients with critical conditions. This has led to higher chances of infection being spread to non-COVID-19 patients and healthcare workers and an overall increased probability of cross contamination. The effects of design parameters on the performance of ventilation systems to control the spread of airborne particles in intensive care units are studied numerically. Four different cases are considered, and the spread of particles is studied. Two new criteria for the ventilation system—viz., dimensionless timescale and extraction timescale—are introduced and their performances are compared. Furthermore, an optimization process is performed to understand the effects of design variables (inlet width, velocity, and temperature) on the thermal comfort conditions (predicted mean vote, percentage of people dissatisfied, and air change effectiveness) according to suggested standard values and the relations for calculating these parameters based on the design variables are proposed. Desirability functions that are comprised of all three thermal condition parameters are used to determine the range of variables that result in thermally comfortable conditions and a maximum desirability of 0.865 is obtained. The results show that a poorly designed ventilation system acts like a perfectly stirred reactor—which enormously increases the possibilities of contamination—and that when air is injected from the ceiling and extracted from behind the patient beds, the infection spread is least probable since the particles exit the room orders of magnitude faster.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8939549
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher AIP Publishing LLC
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-89395492022-03-22 Minimizing the COVID-19 spread in hospitals through optimization of ventilation systems Arjmandi, Hamed Amini, Reza Kashfi, Mehdi Abikenari, Matthew Alexander Davani, Ashkan Phys Fluids (1994) Articles The rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus has overwhelmed hospitals with patients in need of intensive care, which is often limited in capacity and is generally reserved for patients with critical conditions. This has led to higher chances of infection being spread to non-COVID-19 patients and healthcare workers and an overall increased probability of cross contamination. The effects of design parameters on the performance of ventilation systems to control the spread of airborne particles in intensive care units are studied numerically. Four different cases are considered, and the spread of particles is studied. Two new criteria for the ventilation system—viz., dimensionless timescale and extraction timescale—are introduced and their performances are compared. Furthermore, an optimization process is performed to understand the effects of design variables (inlet width, velocity, and temperature) on the thermal comfort conditions (predicted mean vote, percentage of people dissatisfied, and air change effectiveness) according to suggested standard values and the relations for calculating these parameters based on the design variables are proposed. Desirability functions that are comprised of all three thermal condition parameters are used to determine the range of variables that result in thermally comfortable conditions and a maximum desirability of 0.865 is obtained. The results show that a poorly designed ventilation system acts like a perfectly stirred reactor—which enormously increases the possibilities of contamination—and that when air is injected from the ceiling and extracted from behind the patient beds, the infection spread is least probable since the particles exit the room orders of magnitude faster. AIP Publishing LLC 2022-03 2022-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8939549/ /pubmed/35342279 http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0081291 Text en © 2022 Author(s). Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ).
spellingShingle Articles
Arjmandi, Hamed
Amini, Reza
Kashfi, Mehdi
Abikenari, Matthew Alexander
Davani, Ashkan
Minimizing the COVID-19 spread in hospitals through optimization of ventilation systems
title Minimizing the COVID-19 spread in hospitals through optimization of ventilation systems
title_full Minimizing the COVID-19 spread in hospitals through optimization of ventilation systems
title_fullStr Minimizing the COVID-19 spread in hospitals through optimization of ventilation systems
title_full_unstemmed Minimizing the COVID-19 spread in hospitals through optimization of ventilation systems
title_short Minimizing the COVID-19 spread in hospitals through optimization of ventilation systems
title_sort minimizing the covid-19 spread in hospitals through optimization of ventilation systems
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8939549/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35342279
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0081291
work_keys_str_mv AT arjmandihamed minimizingthecovid19spreadinhospitalsthroughoptimizationofventilationsystems
AT aminireza minimizingthecovid19spreadinhospitalsthroughoptimizationofventilationsystems
AT kashfimehdi minimizingthecovid19spreadinhospitalsthroughoptimizationofventilationsystems
AT abikenarimatthewalexander minimizingthecovid19spreadinhospitalsthroughoptimizationofventilationsystems
AT davaniashkan minimizingthecovid19spreadinhospitalsthroughoptimizationofventilationsystems