MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF SARS-COV-2 PARTICLES’ PROPAGATION DURING HUMAN REFLEXES

Abstract

An unknown virus, which was detected in Wuhan city in 2019, had changed fate of the world immediately causing an economic loss, decrease in total population and etc. A penetration of coronavirus contaminated particles to a human cell is able to cause an overproduction of cytokines and antibodies. This process gives a rise to fatal cases. Hence, because of SARS-CoV-2’s pathogenicity, severity and unexpectedness, effective safety measures should be implemented. Along with safe social distancing and wearing a mask, a presence of air conditioning, ventilation system and open windows can reduce the coronavirus propagation in enclosed spaces. The present article focuses on the modeling of coronavirus particles’ propagation during human respiratory reflexes within a constructed three-dimensional confined space with inlet and outlet boundary conditions. Momentum and continuity equations, k-ε turbulence model and Lagrangian dispersion model were utilized to solve the problem. SIMPLE is a main method to solve all governing equations. The primary objectives of this work are to demonstrate the efficiency of air conditioning and open windows in preventing the spread of viruses and to examine particle behavior in the computational domain.