Air Flow Experiments on a Train Carriage—Towards Understanding the Risk of Airborne Transmission

Woodward, Huw; Fan, Shiwei; Bhagat, Rajesh K.; Dadonau, Maksim; Wykes, Megan S. Davies; Martin, Elizabeth; Hama, Sarkawt; Tiwari, Arvind; Dalziel, Stuart B.; Jones, R. L.; Kumar, Prashant; Linden, P. F.

doi:10.3390/atmos12101267

Cited by 13 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…The ventilation of the Class 802 is similar to other rail stock; therefore, the results described here can be translated to other types of modern long‐distance train carriages. A series of CO 2 experiments were conducted by Woodward et al, 21 which will be used to compare and verify the models in Section 4.…”

Section: Carriage Geometry and Mechanical Ventilationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The 1D‐model requires estimates for the longitudinal flowrate and the turbulent diffusion coefficient, which are not necessarily known a priori. To estimate these parameters, we will compare the 1D‐model with CO 2 measurements conducted in a train carriage by Woodward et al 21 in August 2020. These measurements used passengers as sources of CO 2 .…”

Section: Comparison Between Models and Co2 Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the experiments of Woodward et al, 21 a total of six passengers were placed near the middle or end of the carriage. These passengers were seated over three consecutive rows, with a distance of 0.7 m distance between the rows.…”

Section: Comparison Between Models and Co2 Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On average, the infection rate increased by 0.15% per hour of co‐traveling. Woodward et al 21 performed CO 2 and aerosol measurements in a train carriage along with flow visualizations using artificial fog. The flow patterns in the carriage cross‐section were observed to be strongly influenced by the ventilation system and change substantially between the center and end of the carriage.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modeling disease transmission in a train carriage using a simple 1D ‐model

et al. 2022

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Understanding airborne infectious disease transmission on public transport is essential to reducing the risk of infection of passengers and crew members. We propose a new one‐dimensional (1D) model that predicts the longitudinal dispersion of airborne contaminants and the risk of disease transmission inside a railway carriage. We compare the results of this 1D‐model to the predictions of a model that assumes the carriage is fully mixed. The 1D‐model is validated using measurements of controlled carbon‐dioxide experiments conducted in a full‐scale railway carriage. We use our results to provide novel insights into the impact of various strategies to reduce the risk of airborne transmission on public transport.

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Section: Carriage Geometry and Mechanical Ventilationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Comparison Between Models and Co2 Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Comparison Between Models and Co2 Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modeling disease transmission in a train carriage using a simple 1D ‐model

et al. 2022

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“…Many countries are making high economic investments to equip schools with CO 2 meters [ 41 , 42 ]. In addition, other isolated initiatives have successfully implemented this methodology in shopping centers [ 43 ], collective transport [ 44 , 45 , 46 ], offices [ 47 ], or university and school classrooms [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 ]. Specifically, a recent study in Italy reported an 82% reduction in secondary COVID-19 infections in schools where they controlled air renewal from CO 2 measurements [ 53 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Control of Metabolic CO2 in Public Transport as a Strategy to Reduce the Transmission of Respiratory Infectious Diseases

Baselga

Alba

Schuhmacher

2022

IJERPH

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The global acceptance of the SARS-CoV-2 airborne transmission led to prevention measures based on quality control and air renewal. Among them, carbon dioxide (CO2) measurement has positioned itself as a cost-efficiency, reliable, and straightforward method to assess indoor air renewal indirectly. Through the control of CO2, it is possible to implement and validate the effectiveness of prevention measures to reduce the risk of contagion of respiratory diseases by aerosols. Thanks to the method scalability, CO2 measurement has become the gold standard for diagnosing air quality in shared spaces. Even though collective transport is considered one of the environments with the highest rate of COVID-19 propagation, little research has been done where the air inside vehicles is analyzed. This work explores the generation and accumulation of metabolic CO2 in a tramway (Zaragoza, Spain) operation. Importantly, we propose to use the indicator ppm/person as a basis for comparing environments under different conditions. Our study concludes with an experimental evaluation of the benefit of modifying some parameters of the Heating–Ventilation–Air conditioning (HVAC) system. The study of the particle retention efficiency of the implemented filters shows a poor air cleaning performance that, at present, can be counteracted by opening windows. Seeking a post-pandemic scenario, it will be crucial to seek strategies to improve air quality in public transport to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases.

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Predicting aerosol transmission in airplanes: Benefits of a joint approach using experiments and simulation

Leithäuser,

Norrefeldt,

Thiel

et al. 2024

Numerical Methods in Fluids

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SummaryWe investigate the transmission of aerosol particles in an airplane cabin with a joint approach using experiments and simulation. Experiments were conducted in a realistic aircraft cabin with heated dummies acting as passengers. A Sheffield head with an aerosol generator was used to emulate an infected passenger and particle numbers were measured at different locations throughout the cabin to quantify the exposure of other passengers. The same setting was simulated with a computational fluid dynamics model consisting of a Lagrange continuous phase for capturing the air flow, coupled with a Lagrange suspended discrete phase to represent the aerosols. Virtual measurements were derived from the simulation and compared with the experiments. Our main results are: the experimental setup provides good measurements well suited for model validation, the simulation does correctly reproduce the fundamental mechanisms of aerosol dispersion and simulations can help to improve the understanding of aerosol transmission for example by visualizing particle distributions. Furthermore, with findings from the simulation it was possible to crucially improve the experimental setup, proving that feedback between the numerical and the hardware world is indeed beneficial.

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Air Flow Experiments on a Train Carriage—Towards Understanding the Risk of Airborne Transmission

Cited by 13 publications

References 39 publications

Modeling disease transmission in a train carriage using a simple 1D ‐model

Modeling disease transmission in a train carriage using a simple 1D ‐model

The Control of Metabolic CO2 in Public Transport as a Strategy to Reduce the Transmission of Respiratory Infectious Diseases

Predicting aerosol transmission in airplanes: Benefits of a joint approach using experiments and simulation

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