Talaat Khaled, Abuhegazy Mohamed, Mahfoze Omar A, Anderoglu Osman, Poroseva Svetlana V
Nuclear Engineering Department, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87106, USA.
Mechanical Engineering Department, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87106, USA.
Phys Fluids (1994). 2021 Mar 1;33(3):033312. doi: 10.1063/5.0044720. Epub 2021 Mar 16.
Identifying economically viable intervention measures to reduce COVID-19 transmission on aircraft is of critical importance especially as new SARS-CoV2 variants emerge. Computational fluid-particle dynamic simulations are employed to investigate aerosol transmission and intervention measures on a Boeing 737 cabin zone. The present study compares aerosol transmission in three models: (a) a model at full passenger capacity (60 passengers), (b) a model at reduced capacity (40 passengers), and (c) a model at full capacity with sneeze guards/shields between passengers. Lagrangian simulations are used to model aerosol transport using particle sizes in the 1-50 m range, which spans aerosols emitted during breathing, speech, and coughing. Sneeze shields placed between passengers redirect the local air flow and transfer part of the lateral momentum of the air to longitudinal momentum. This mechanism is exploited to direct more particles to the back of the seats in front of the index patient (aerosol source) and reduce lateral transfer of aerosol particles to other passengers. It is demonstrated that using sneeze shields on full capacity flights can reduce aerosol transmission to levels below that of reduced capacity flights without sneeze shields.
确定经济上可行的干预措施以减少飞机上新冠病毒的传播至关重要，尤其是在新的新冠病毒变种出现的情况下。采用计算流体-颗粒动力学模拟来研究波音737机舱区域的气溶胶传播及干预措施。本研究比较了三种模型中的气溶胶传播情况：(a) 满员（60名乘客）模型，(b) 减员（40名乘客）模型，以及 (c) 满员且乘客之间设有喷嚏防护装置/防护罩的模型。采用拉格朗日模拟来模拟粒径在1-50微米范围内的气溶胶传输，该粒径范围涵盖了呼吸、说话和咳嗽时产生的气溶胶。乘客之间设置的喷嚏防护罩会使局部气流转向，并将部分空气的横向动量转化为纵向动量。利用这一机制可将更多颗粒导向索引患者（气溶胶源）前方座位的后部，并减少气溶胶颗粒向其他乘客的横向传播。结果表明，在满员航班上使用喷嚏防护罩可将气溶胶传播降低到低于未使用喷嚏防护罩的减员航班的水平。
