A CFD research study on the validity of dividers in vehicles

Abstract

People who misjudge the infectious ability of Covid-19 pathogen may abandon non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), such as masks, gloves, especially in todays situations where isolation rules and mask limitations have been eliminated in most nations. Consequently, in public spaces with poor ventilation and high population density, individuals who do not wear masks are more likely to become infected. This article focuses on the scenario of Covid-19 pathogen spreading in a cab with only the driver and a passenger present. We also examine whether the use of a divider - a plastic board that separates the front and back of the cab, can lower the likelihood of infection compared to the situation that a divider is installed. To access the likelihood of infection, we simulate the fluid field inside a closed cab using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. We set the mutual situations one is with infected driver and another is with infected passenger, in order to make our simulation more general.