A numerical approach for preventing the dispersion of infectious disease in a meeting room

Abstract

Airborne transmission of respiratory aerosols carrying infectious viruses has generated many concerns about cross-contamination risks, particularly in indoor environments. The study addresses the emitted viral particles during coughing from the infected person and their transport dynamics inside the safe social distance meeting room. CFD based on coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian techniques is used to explore the characteristics of the airflow field in the domain. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effects of the number of open and closed windows, exhaust layouts, and location of the air conditioner systems on the dispersion of the particles. The results show that opening adjacent windows of the emission source has a better performance against the exit of particles from the environment than opening the window(s) that is farthest from that. Moreover, the results demonstrated reducing the distance between the ventilation systems installed location and the ceiling can decrease the fraction of the suspended particles by over 35%, and at-risk individuals from 6 to 2 people. As well, changing the location of inputs from the back of the infected person to the front of that can raise the shelf time of the particles and their concentration rises from 4.125 to 5%, respectively.