CFD Analyses: The Effect of Pressure Suction and Airflow Velocity on Coronavirus Dispersal

Bushra Obeidat,Ibrahim Atef Abdallah,Eman F Darwish,Abdulkarem Amhamed,Odi Fawwaz Alrebei

doi:10.3390/app11167450

Abstract

Hospital emergency departments (EDs) are hubs for highly transmissible infectious diseases, posing the highest risk of viral infection transmission. With the current COVID-19 outbreak, it has become clear that the ED design needs to be altered in order to be successful in containing the pandemic. The purpose of this study is to use a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation to evaluate the ventilation system design for an emergency department at a university hospital. The kinetic energy and velocity patterns of turbulence were analyzed to determine which areas of the ED were most susceptible to viral transmission. Additionally, the impact of pressure suction on COVID-19 dispersion has been investigated. Three critical areas of the ED, overnight patient beds, surgical rooms, and resuscitation rooms, all had much higher air velocity, dispersion, and mixing levels than the rest of the department’s spaces, according to the simulation findings. Air transmission from these sites to adjacent regions is a possibility in the scenario studied, increasing the likelihood of the virus spreading from these locations and infecting people in the surrounding areas. The results of these simulations may be utilized to provide recommendations to the hospital administration about the placement of inlets and outlets, the separation of areas, and the interior design of the spaces and corridors.

Highlights

Following a number of studies on the transmission of infectious disease particles and viruses, it has been shown that ventilation is one of the most important methods for reducing and controlling pathogen spread through the air in hospitals [6,7]
The World Health Organization (WHO), the American Society of Heating, Ventilation, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations suggest that patient rooms have ventilation rates of at least 6 ACH and hospital isolation rooms have ventilation rates of at least 12 ACH [8,9,10]
To safeguard patients and healthcare workers in the hospital emergency room, it is important to reduce the risk of airborne infection transmission to a low level while simultaneously flattening the COVID-19 curve

Summary

Introduction

By examining the most recent advances in science, it has been shown that the prevention of infectious diseases is not a novel area of study [1,2,3,4]. Droplets, which are usually larger than 5 microns in size, spread from an infected individual and travel considerable distances in the air before reaching another person [5]. Following a number of studies on the transmission of infectious disease particles and viruses, it has been shown that ventilation is one of the most important methods for reducing and controlling pathogen spread through the air in hospitals [6,7]. Even though raising the ventilation airflow rate helps to reduce concentrations in situations when the pollution source is stationary, doing so does not improve the efficiency of the ventilation system [7]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion