Application of National Aerosol Facility (NAF) in Designing of a Ventilation System for Isolation Rooms to Minimize Interpersonal Exposure of Sneezing/Coughing

Abstract

With the outbreak of pandemic COVID-19, protection of public and health workers has become a national priority. In this regard, it is desirable to study the coughing-and sneezing-generated pathogen aerosols, its dispersion and transportation in isolation rooms, clinics, confined spaces and other general public places to evolve efficient ventilation system along with suitable protective measures to limit the spread of the virus. The present paper describes the overall experimental scheme supported with computational fluid dynamics evaluation to address this problem for evolution of optimal ventilation system using the National Aerosol Facility at IIT Kanpur set up in collaboration with BARC Trombay. The outcome of this study is aimed to evolve a national standard for optimum isolation rooms that would provide adequate protection to health workers.

Sanitization During and After COVID-19 Pandemic: A Short Review

“…Novoselac and Srebric ( 2003 ) reported that the choice of ventilation strategy defined the correlations between the removal of contaminant and air-exchange efficiency. Singh and Tripathi ( 2020 ) propose experimental and computational fluid dynamics models to establish an understanding for improved ventilation design for hospitals, isolation rooms and enclosed spaces. Better ventilation when combined with efficient filtering of air will help sanitize and improve the quality of air in living rooms and isolation rooms.…”

PREFACE on the Special Issue ‘Technologies for Fighting COVID-19’

“…These simulations claimed to have potential in devising accurate guidelines for separation distances between neighbors within a group, design better masks, and minimize the spread of the disease. Singh and Tripathi ( 2020 ) proposed to study ventilation design of a room for effective transportation of coughing- and sneezing-generated pathogen aerosols. Joshi ( 2020 ) developed an innovative chamber christened as COVid SAmple Collection Kiosk (COVSACK) to protect the healthcare provider from getting infected while collecting samples.…”

Predicting the effects of environmental parameters on the spatio-temporal distribution of the droplets carrying coronavirus in public transport – A machine learning approach

“…The effects of relative humidity and wind velocity on the evaporation and dispersion of the droplets in an open space were evaluated by Li et al [16]. By numerical simulation of sneezing in a room, Singh and Tripathi developed a model for droplets transmission [17]. Experiments of Chaudhuri et al [18] showed that the droplets evaporation time depends on the ambient temperature.…”