Pollutant Diffusion in an Infectious Disease Hospital with Different Thermal Conditions

Abstract

In recent years, the outbreak of infectious diseases has highlighted the need for improved planning of hospital buildings. Traditional planning for infectious disease hospitals only considers the impact of wind and pollutant diffusion, without analysing pollutant diffusion under different thermal conditions. To reveal the distribution of pollutants in infectious disease hospitals under different thermal conditions, this study conducted wind tunnel tests and numerical analyses of pollutant diffusion in the environment surrounding an infectious disease hospital in Changsha, China. The results show that the pollutant concentration mainly depends on the local wind speed. In the range of Rb = −1.25 to 1.25, the concentration of pollutants was mainly affected by the disturbance of the flow field in areas with rough surfaces, where the effect of the thermal stability of the atmosphere on pollutant diffusion was relatively small. However, in relatively flat regions, the thermal stability of the atmosphere played a significant role in pollutant diffusion around the buildings.