Natural human exhalation flows such as coughing, sneezing and breathing can be considered as ‘jet-like’ airflows in the sense that they are produced from a single source in a single exhalation effort, with a relatively symmetrical, conical geometry. Although coughing and sneezing have garnered much attention as potential, explosive sources of infectious aerosols, these are relatively rare events during daily life, whereas breathing is necessary for life and is performed continuously. Real-time shadowgraph imaging was used to visualise and capture high-speed images of healthy volunteers sneezing and breathing (through the nose – nasally, and through the mouth - orally). Six volunteers, who were able to respond to the pepper sneeze stimulus, were recruited for the sneezing experiments (2 women: 27.5±6.36 years; 4 men: 29.25±10.53 years). The maximum visible distance over which the sneeze plumes (or puffs) travelled was 0.6 m, the maximum sneeze velocity derived from these measured distances was 4.5 m/s. The maximum 2-dimensional (2-D) area of dissemination of these sneezes was 0.2 m2. The corresponding derived parameter, the maximum 2-D area expansion rate of these sneezes was 2 m2/s. For nasal breathing, the maximum propagation distance and derived velocity were 0.6 m and 1.4 m/s, respectively. The maximum 2-D area of dissemination and derived expansion rate were 0.11 m2 and 0.16 m2/s, respectively. Similarly, for mouth breathing, the maximum propagation distance and derived velocity were 0.8 m and 1.3 m/s, respectively. The maximum 2-D area of dissemination and derived expansion rate were 0.18 m2 and 0.17 m2/s, respectively. Surprisingly, a comparison of the maximum exit velocities of sneezing reported here with those obtained from coughing (published previously) demonstrated that they are relatively similar, and not extremely high. This is in contrast with some earlier estimates of sneeze velocities, and some reasons for this difference are discussed.

This paper describes a study of the local and global effect of an isolated group of cylinders on an incident uniform flow. Using high resolution two-dimensional computations, we analysed the flow through and around a localised circular array of cylinders, where the ratio of array diameter (D G ) to cylinder diameter (D) is 21. The number of cylinders varied from N C = 7 to 133, and they were arranged in a series of concentric rings to allow even distribution within the array with an average void fraction φ = N C (D/D G ) 2 , which varied from 0.016 to 0.30. The characteristic Reynolds number of the array was Re G = 2100. A range of diagnostic tools were applied, including the lift/drag forces on each cylinder (and the whole array), Eulerian and Lagrangian average velocity within the array, and the decay of maximum vorticity with distance downstream. To interpret the flow field, we used vorticity and the dimensionless form of the second invariant of the velocity gradient tensor. A mathematical model, based on representing the bodies as point forces, sources and dipoles, was applied to interpret the results. Three distinct flow regimes were identified. For low void fractions (φ < 0.05), the cylinders have uncoupled individual wake patterns, where the vorticity is rapidly annihilated by wake intermingling downstream and the forces are similar to that of an isolated cylinder. At intermediate void fractions (0.05 < φ < 0.15), a shear layer is generated at the shoulders of the array and the force acting on the cylinders is steady. For high void fractions (φ > 0.15), the array generates a wake in a similar way to a solid body of the same scale. For low void fraction arrays, the mathematical model provides a reasonable assessment of the forces on individual bodies within the array, the Eulerian mean velocity and the upstream velocity field. While it broadly captures the change in the rate of decay of the maximum vorticity magnitude Ω max downstream, the magnitude is underpredicted.

s u m m a r yWith concerns about the potential for the aerosol and airborne transmission of infectious agents, particularly influenza, more attention is being focused on the effectiveness of infection control procedures to prevent hospital-acquired infections by this route. More recently a number of different techniques have been applied to examine the temporalespatial information about the airflow patterns and the movement of related, suspended material within this air in a hospital setting. Closer collaboration with engineers has allowed clinical microbiologists, virologists and infection control teams to assess the effectiveness of hospital isolation and ventilation facilities. The characteristics of human respiratory activities have also been investigated using some familiar engineering techniques. Such studies aim to enhance the effectiveness of such preventive measures and have included experiments with humanlike mannequins using various tracer gas/particle techniques, real human volunteers with realtime non-invasive Schlieren imaging, numerical modelling using computational fluid dynamics, and small scale physical analogues with water. This article outlines each of these techniques in a non-technical manner, suitable for a clinical readership without specialist airflow or engineering knowledge.

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